Though David's raigne be somewhat ment,
Yet Christ is chiefe here prophecied,
Who was both kyng in regiment,
And priest in death; then after stied
To heaven to sit as priest and king,
His frendes to saue, his foes to wring,
Wyth death the sting.
Dixit Dominus Domino.
1 THE Lord most hye, the Father, thus
Dyd say to Christ, my Lord, his Sonne,-
Set thou in power most glorious
On my right hand aboue the sunne;
Until I make thy foes euen all
Thy low footstoole to thee to fall
2 The Lord shall send from Zion place
Of thy great power, imperiall,
The royall rod, and princely mace,
Whence grace shall spring originall:
Yea, God shall say,-Thou God vprise,
To raigne amids thyne enemies,
3 The people, glad, in hartes delight,
Shall offer giftes, in worship free,
As conquest day of thy great might
In shining shew of sanctitie:
For why? the dew of thy swete birth,
As morne new sprong, dropth ioyfull mirth,
So seene on earth.
4 The Lord did sweare, and fast decreed;
He will hys worde no tyme repent,
Which sayd thou art a priest indeed,
A kyngly priest, aye permamant;
Of order namde Melchisedeck,
Whom peace and right doth ioyntly decke
As God's elect.
5 The Lord, as shield, kepth right thy hand
To make thy raigne inuincible:
He shall subdue by sea and land
All power aduerse most forcible:
He shall great kyngs and Cæsars wound;
In day of wrath, all them confound
By fearefull sound.
6 He iudgment true shall exercise,
As iudge among the Gentile sect;
All places he shall full surprise,
Wyth bodies dead, on earth proiect.
Abrode he shall in sunder smyte
The heds of realmes that him will spyte,
Or scorne hys myght.
7 Though here exilde, he strayth as bond,
And shall in way but water drynke
Of homely brooke as comth to hand,
Pursued to death, and wysht to sinke:
Yet he for thys humilitie
Shall lift hys head in dignitie
O Lord, the eternall Sonne of the Father, which wast begotten before the world was made, and art the first of all creatures, we lowly beseche thee that where, by the session of the ryhte hande of thy Father, thou subduest thy enemies, so make vs to subdue all the dominion of sinne rising against vs, to be made meete to serue thee in all godliness: who liuest and raignest one God wyth the Father, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
AN HYMNE OF HEAVENLY LOVE.
LOVE, lift me up upon thy golden wings
From this base world unto thy heaven's hight,
Where I may see those admirable things
Which there thou workest by thy soveraine might,
Farre above feeble reach of earthly sight,
That I thereof an heavenly hymne may sing
Unto the God of Love, high heaven's King.
Many lewd layes (ah! woe is me the more!)
In praise of that mad fit which fooles call Love,
I have in th' heate of youth made heretofore,
That in light wits did loose affection move:
But all these follies now I do reprove,
And turned have the tenor of my string,
The heavenly prayses of true Love to sing.
And ye, that wont with greedy vaine desire
To reade my fault, and, wondring at my flame,
To warme yourselves at my wide sparckling fire,
Sith now that heat is quenched, quench my blame,
And in her ashes shrowd my dying shame;
For who my passed follies now pursewes,
Beginnes his owne, and my old fault renewes.
BEFORE THIS WORLD'S GREAT FRAME, in which
al things
Are now contained, found any being-place,
Ere flitting Time could wag his eyas wings
About that mightie bound which doth embrace
The rolling spheres, and parts their houres by space,
That High Eternall Powre, which now doth move
In all these things, mov'd in its selfe by love.
It lov'd it selfe, because it selfe was faire;
(For fair is lov'd;) and of it self begot
Like to it selfe his eldest Sonne and Heire,
Eternall, pure, and voide of sinfull blot,
The firstling of His ioy, in whom no iot
Of love's dislike or pride was to be found,
Whom He therefore with equall honour crown'd.
With Him he raign'd, before all time prescribed,
In endlesse glorie and immortall might,
Together with that Third from them derived,
Most wise, most holy, most almightie Spright!
Whose kingdome's throne no thoughts of earthly
wight
Can comprehend, much lesse my trembling verse
With equall words can hope it to reherse.
Yet, O most blessed Spright! pure lampe of light,
Eternall spring of grace and wisedom trew,
Vouchsafe to shed into my barren spright
Some little drop of thy celestiall dew,
That may my rymes with sweet infuse embrew,
And give me words equall unto my thought,
To tell the marveiles by thy mercie wrought.
Yet being pregnant still with powrefull grace,
And full of fruitfull Love, that loves to get
Things like himselfe, and to enlarge his race,
His second brood, though not of powre so great,
Yet full of beautie, next He did beget
An infinite increase of angels bright,
All glistring glorious in their Maker's light.
To them the heaven's illimitable hight
(Not this round heaven, which we from hence be-
Adorn'd with thousand lamps of burning light, And with ten thousand gemmes of shyning gold,) He gave as their inheritance to hold,
That they might serve Him in eternall blis,
And be partakers of these ioyes of His.
There they in their trinall triplicities
About Him wait, and on His will depend,
Either with nimble wings to cut the skies,
When He them on His messages doth send,
Or on His owne dread presence to attend,
Where they behold the glorie of His light,
And caroll hymnes of love both day and night.
Both day and night is unto them all one;
For He His beames doth unto them extend,
That darknesse there appeareth never none;
Ne hath their day, ne hath their blisse, an end,
But there their termelesse time in pleasure spend:
Ne ever should their happinesse decay,
Had not they dar'd their Lord to disobay.
But pride, impatient of long resting peace,
Did puffe them up with greedy bold ambition,
That they gan cast their state how to increase
Above the fortune of their first condition,
And sit in God's own seat without commission:
The brightest angel, even the child of Light,
Drew millions more against their God to fight.
Th' Almighty, seeing their so bold assay,
Kindled the flame of His consuming yre,
And with His onely breath them blew away
From heaven's hight, to which they did aspyre,
To deepest hell and lake of damned fyre;
Where they in darknesse and dread horror dwell,
Hating the happie light from which they fell.
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