And from this care, where dreams and sorrows reign,
Lead me above,
Where light, joy, leisure, and true comforts move
Without all pain:
There, hid in thee, show me his life again
At whose dumb urn
Thus all the year I mourn.
There are several amongst his poems lamenting, like this, the death of
some dear friend--perhaps his twin-brother, whom he outlived thirty
years.
According to what a man is capable of seeing in nature, he becomes either
a man of appliance, a man of science, a mystic, or a poet.
I must now give two that are simple in thought, construction, and music.
The latter ought to be popular, from the nature of its rhythmic movement,
and the holy merriment it carries. But in the former, note how the major
key of gladness changes in the third stanza to the minor key of
aspiration, which has always some sadness in it; a sadness which deepens
to grief in the next stanza at the consciousness of unfitness for
Christ's company, but is lifted by hope almost again to gladness in the
last.
CHRIST'S NATIVITY.
Awake, glad heart! Get up, and sing!
It is the birthday of thy king!
Awake! awake!
The sun doth shake
Light from his locks, and, all the way
Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.
Awake! awake! Hark how the wood rings
Winds whisper, and the busy springs
A concert make:
Awake! awake!
Man is their high-priest, and should rise
To offer up the sacrifice.
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