Felicity! Who ope’st to none that knocks, yet, laughing weak, Yield’st all to Love that will not seek, And who, though won, wilt droop and die, Unless wide doors bespeak thee free, How safe’s the bond of thee and me, Since thee I cherish and defy! Is’t Love or Friendship, Dearest, we obey? Ah, thou art young, and I am gray; But happy man is he who knows How well time goes, With no unkind intruder by, Between such friends as thou and I! ’Twould wrong thy favour, Sweet, were I to say, ’Tis best by far, When best things are not possible, To make the best of those that are; For, though it be not May, Sure, few delights of Spring excel The beauty of this mild September day! So with me walk, And view the dreaming field and bossy Autumn wood, And how in humble russet goes The Spouse of Honour, fair Repose, Far from a world whence love is fled And truth is dying because joy is dead; And, if we hear the roaring wheel Of God’s remoter service, public zeal, Let us to stiller place retire And glad admire How, near Him, sounds of working cease In little fervour and much peace; And let us talk Of holy things in happy mood, Learnt of thy blest twin-sister, Certitude; Or let’s about our neighbours chat, Well praising this, less praising that, And judging outer strangers by Those gentle and unsanction’d lines To which remorse of equity Of old hath moved the School divines. Or linger where this willow bends, And let us, till the melody be caught, Harken that sudden, singing thought, On which unguess’d increase to life perchance depends. He ne’er hears twice the same who hears The songs of heaven’s unanimous spheres, And this may be the song to make, at last, amends For many sighs and boons in vain long sought! Now, careless, let us stray, or stop To see the partridge from the covey drop, Or, while the evening air’s like yellow wine, From the pure stream take out The playful trout, That jerks with rasping check the struggled line; Or to the Farm, where, high on trampled stacks, The labourers stir themselves amain To feed with hasty sheaves of grain The deaf’ning engine’s boisterous maw, And snatch again, From to-and-fro tormenting racks, The toss’d and hustled straw; Whilst others tend the shedded wheat That fills yon row of shuddering sacks, Or shift them quick, and bind them neat, And dogs and boys with sticks Wait, murderous, for the rats that leave the ruin’d ricks; And, all the bags being fill’d and rank’d fivefold, they pour The treasure on the barn’s clean floor, And take them back for more, Until the whole bared harvest beauteous lies Under our pleased and prosperous eyes. Then let us give our idlest hour To the world’s wisdom and its power; Hear famous Golden-Tongue refuse To gander sauce that’s good for goose, Or the great Clever Party con How many grains of sifted sand, Heap’d, make a likely house to stand, How many fools one Solomon. Science, beyond all other lust Endow’d with appetite for dust, We glance at where it grunts, well-sty’d, And pass upon the other side. Pass also by, in pensive mood, Taught by thy kind twin-sister, Certitude, Yon puzzled crowd, whose tired intent Hunts like a pack without a scent. And now come home, Where none of our mild days Can fail, though simple, to confess The magic of mysteriousness; For there ’bide charming Wonders three, Besides, Sweet, thee, To comprehend whose commonest ways, Ev’n could that be, Were coward’s ’vantage and no true man’s praise.

REGINA COELI

Say, did his sisters wonder what could Joseph see In a mild, silent little Maid like thee? And was it awful, in that narrow house, With God for Babe and Spouse? Nay, like thy simple, female sort, each one Apt to find Him in Husband and in Son, Nothing to thee came strange in this. Thy wonder was but wondrous bliss: Wondrous, for, though True Virgin lives not but does know, (Howbeit none ever yet confess’d,) That God lies really in her breast, Of thine He made His special nest! And so All mothers worship little feet, And kiss the very ground they’ve trod; But, ah, thy little Baby sweet Who was indeed thy God!

THE OPEN SECRET

The Heavens repeat no other Song, And, plainly or in parable, The Angels trust, in each man’s tongue, The Treasure’s safety to its size. In shameful Hell The Lily in last corruption lies, Where known ’tis, rotten-lily-wise, By the strange foulness of the smell. Earth, that, in this arcanum, spies Proof of high kinship unconceiv’d, By all desired and disbeliev’d, Shews fancies, in each thing that is, Which nothing mean, not meaning this, Yea, does from her own law, to hint it, err, As ’twere a trust too huge for her. Maiden and Youth pipe wondrous clear The tune they are the last to hear. ’Tis the strange gem in Pleasure’s cup. Physician and Philosopher, In search of acorns, plough it up, But count it nothing ’mong their gains; Nay, call it pearl, they’d answer, ‘Lo, Blest Land where pearls as large as pumpkins grow!’ And would not even rend you for your pains. To tell men truth, yet keep them dark And shooting still beside the mark, God, as in jest, gave to their wish, The Sign of Jonah and the Fish. ’Tis the name new, on the white stone, To none but them that have it known; And even these can scarce believe, but cry, ‘When turn’d was Sion’s captivity, Then were we, yea, and yet we seem Like them that dream!’ In Spirit ’tis a punctual ray Of peace that sheds more light than day; In Will and Mind ’Tis the easy path so hard to find; In Heart, a pain not to be told, Were words mere honey, milk, and gold; I’ the Body ’tis the bag of the bee; In all, the present, thousandfold amends Made to the sad, astonish’d life Of him that leaves house, child, and wife, And on God’s ’hest, almost despairing, wends, As little guessing as the herd What a strange Phoenix of a bird Builds in this tree, But only intending all that He intends. To this, the Life of them that live, If God would not, thus far, give tongue, Ah, why did He his secret give To one that has the gift of song? But all He does He doubtless means, And, if the Mystery that smites Prophets dumb Here, to the grace-couch’d eyes of some, Shapes to its living face the clinging shroud, Perchance the Skies grow tired of screens, And ’tis His Advent in the Cloud.

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