13. The Divine Lover by Phineas Fletcher. Nicholson & Lee, eds. 1917. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

13. The Divine Lover

By Phineas Fletcher (1580–1650)

I ME Lord? can’st thou mispend
One word, misplace one look on me?
Call’st me thy Love, thy Friend?
Can this poor soul the object be
Of these love-glances, those life-kindling eyes?	5
What? I the Centre of thy arms embraces?
Of all thy labour I the prize?
Love never mocks, Truth never lies.
Oh how I quake: Hope fear, fear hope displaces:
I would, but cannot hope: such wondrous love amazes.	10

II See, I am black as night,
See I am darkness: dark as hell.
Lord thou more fair than light;
Heav’ns Sun thy Shadow; can Sunns dwell
With Shades? ’twixt light, and darkness what commerce?	15
True: thou art darkness, I thy Light: my ray
Thy mists, and hellish foggs shall pierce.
With me, black soul, with me converse.
I make the foul December flowry May,
Turn thou thy night to me: I’le turn thy night to day.	20

III See Lord, see I am dead:
Tomb’d in my self: my self my grave
A drudge: so born, so bred:
My self even to my self a slave.
Thou Freedom, Life: can Life, and Liberty	25
Love bondage, death? Thy Freedom I: I tyed
To loose thy bonds: be bound to me:
My Yoke shall ease, my bonds shall free.
Dead soul, thy Spring of life, my dying side:
There dye with me to live: to live in thee I dyed.	30