| LET mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this, | |
| The intelligence that moves, devotion is, | |
| And as the other Spheares, by being growne | |
| Subject to forraigne motions, lose their owne, | |
| And being by others hurried every day, | 5 |
| Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey: | |
| Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit | |
| For their first mover, and are whirld by it. | |
| Hence is’t, that I am carryed towards the West | |
| This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East. | 10 |
| There I should see a Sunne, by rising set, | |
| And by that setting endlesse day beget; | |
| But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall, | |
| Sinne had eternally benighted all. | |
| Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see | 15 |
| That spectacle of too much weight for mee. | |
| Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye; | |
| What a death were it then to see God dye? | |
| It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke, | |
| It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke. | 20 |
| Could I behold those hands which span the Poles, | |
| And turne all spheares at once, peirc’d with those holes? | |
| Could I behold that endlesse height which is | |
| Zenith to us, and our Antipodes, | |
| Humbled below us? or that blood which is | 25 |
| The seat of all our Soules, if not of his, | |
| Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne | |
| By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne? | |
| If on these things I durst not looke, durst I | |
| Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye, | 30 |
| Who was Gods partner here, and furnish’d thus | |
| Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom’d us? | |
| Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye, | |
| They’are present yet unto my memory, | |
| For that looks towards them; and thou look’st towards mee, | 35 |
| O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree; | |
| I turne my backe to thee, but to receive | |
| Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave. | |
| O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee. | |
| Burne off my rusts, and my deformity, | 40 |
| Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace, | |
| That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face. | |
