The utmost end of patience is at hand;
'Tis much if thou much longer here doth stand;
O cumber-ground, thou art a barren tree,
Bear fruit, or else thy end will cursed be!
Thy standing, nor thy name, will help at all;
When fruitful trees are spared, thou must fall.
The axe is laid unto thy roots, O tree!
Bear fruit, or else thy end will cursed be!
THOU Simple Bird, what makes thee here to play? Look, there's the Fowler! prithee, come away Dost not behold the net? Look there, 'tis spread, Venture a little further, thou art dead.
Is there not room enough in all the field
For thee too play in, but thou needs must yield
To the deceitful glittering of a glass,
Between nets placed, to bring thy death to pass?
Bird, if thou art so much for dazzling light,
Look, there's the sun above thee: dart upright:
Thy nature is to soar up to the sky,
Why wilt thou come down to the net and die?
Heed not the Fowler's tempting flattering call;
This whistle he enchanteth Birds withal.
What though thou seest a live Bird in his net,
She's there, because from thence she cannot get.
Look, how he tempteth thee with his decoy,
That he may rob thee of thy life, thy joy.
Come, prithee Bird, I prithee, come away;
Why shouldst thou to this net become a prey?
Hadst thou not wings, or were thy feathers pull'd,
Or wast thou blind, or fast asleep wert lull'd;
The case would somewhat alter; but for thee-
Thy eyes are ope, and thou hast wings to flee.
Remember, that thy song is in thy rise,
Not in thy fall, earth's not thy paradise:
Keep up aloft, then, let thy circuits be
Above, where Birds from Fowlers' nets are free.
This Fowler is an emblem of the devil;
His nets and whistle, figures of all evil.
His glass an emblem is of sinful pleasure,
Decoying such who reckon sin a treasure.
This simple Lark's a shadow of a saint,
Under allurings, ready now to faint.
What you have read, a needful warning is,
Design'd to shew the soul its snare and blis;
And how it may this Fowler's net escape,
And not commit upon itself this rape.
WHAT is the Vine, more than another tree?
Nay most, than it, more tall, more comely be.
What workman thence will take a beam or pin
To make out what may be delighted in?
Its excellency in its fruit doth lie;
A fruitless Vine, it is not worth a fly.
What are professors more than other men i
Nothing at all. Nay, there's not one in ten,
Either for wealth, or wit, that may compare,
In many things, with some that carnal are.
Good then are they, when mortified their sin,
But without that they are not worth a pin.
THE Egg's no chick by falling from the hen,
Nor man a Christian till he's born again.,
The Egg's at first contained in the shell;
Men, afore grace, in sins and darkness dwell.
The Egg, when laid by warmth is made a chicken
And Christ, by grace, the dead in sin doth quicken.
The chick at first is in the cell confined;
So heaven-born souls are in the flesh detain'a.
The shell doth crack, the chick doth chirp and peep,
The Lesh decays, and men then pray and weep.
The shell doth break, the chick's at liberty;
The flesh falls off, the soul mounts up on high.
But both do not enjoy the self-same plight:
The soul is safe the chick now fears the kite.
But chicks from rotten Eggs do not proceed;
Nor is an hypocrite a saint indeed.
The rotten Egg, though underneath the hen,
f cracked stinks, and is leathsome u to men
Nor doth her warmth make what is rotten sound;
What's rotten, rotten will at last be found.
The hypocrite, sin has him in possession,
He is a rotten Egg under profession.
Some Fggs bring cockatrices; and some meu
Seem hatch'd and brooded in the viper's den.
Some Eggs bring wild fowls; and some men there be
As wild as are the wildest fowls that flee.
Some Eggs bring spiders; and some men appear
More venom'd than the worst of spiders are.
Some Eggs brings pismires; and some seem to me
As much for trifles as the pismires be.
And thus to diverse Eggs from diff'rent shapes,
As like some men as monkeys are like apes.
But this is but an Egg; were it a chick,
Here had been legs, and wings, and bones to pick,
METHINKS I see a sight most excellent,
All sorts of Birds fly in the firmament:
Some great, some small, all of a diverse kind,
Mine eye affecting, pleasant to my mind.
Look how they wing along the wholesome air,
Above the world of worldlings, and their care.
And as they diverse are in bulk and hue,
So are they in their way of flying too.
So many Birds, so many various things
Swim in the element upon their wings.
These Birds are emblems of those Men, that shall
E'er long possess the heavens, their all in all.
They each are of a diff'rent shape and kind;
To teach, we of all nations there shall find.
They are some great, some little, as we see,
To shew some great, some small, in glory be
Their flying diversely, as we behold,
Do shew saints' joys will there be manifold.
Some glide, some mount, some flutter, and some io, In a mix'd way of flying, glory too;
To shew that each shall to his full content,
Be happy in that heavenly firmament.
Forgive our debts, as we forgive
Those that to us indebted are.
Into temptation lead us not;
But save us from the wicked suare.
The kingdom's thine, the power too;
We thee adore;
The glory also shall be thine
MEDITATIONS UPON THE PEEP OF DAY.
AT peep of day, I often cannot know
Whether 'tis night, whether 'tis day or no.
I fancy that I see a little light,
But cannot yet distinguish day from night:
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