THOUGH sad this Lesson be to Me, Bycause I love the Book wherein 'tis writ; Yet shall no Greif so potent be As to forbid my Industrie to get It thoroughly by heart: For why Should I my Father loose, although He dy? 2 In mine own Blood, alas, I see This Lesson painted; & I needs must read: Neer, wondrous neer of kin to Me His very Sickness is; nor could I plead Against my Fate, although I were Made his Pains Sonn, & his Distempers Heir. 3 What though by all the World before, Whose Dust & Graves, Deaths Victory confess, Our Times will take no Warning, nor Expect what full against them flying is On every Minutes Wings, but by Their Lives, their Lives uncertainty deny? 4 I see no ground to fancy how This Moment can secure the next to Me: O no! Mortality, wch now Knocks at my Fathers door, right neighbourlie To mine gives Warning, & may heer Enter, for aught I know, as soon as there. 5 And let it enter, JESU, when Soe'r thy Pleasure is its way to ope; But first, oh first, do Thou come in, That by thy gracious Presence Thou mayst stopp What Thou admittest; for by Thee Deaths Ev'n shall be the Dawn of Life to Me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN INVOCATION; SONG, FR. REMORSE by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE AT HOME by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI VIGNETTES OVERSEAS: 5. NIGHT SONG AT AMALFI by SARA TEASDALE JOB. OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE IN THE FOREST by MAURICE BUCHOR AT THE ROADHOUSE: IN MEMORY OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON by BLISS CARMAN WRITTEN IN DEVONSHIRE, NEAR THE DART by ANNE BATTEN CRISTALL |