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A CONCLUSORIE HUMNE TO THE SAME WEEK; & FOR MY FRIEND, by             Poem Explanation        
First Line: Thus, thus my soule perceiveth now
Last Line: Thy sweetnes fir'st, that it must love, or dy.
Subject(s): Gratitude; Worship


THUS, thus my Soule perceiveth now
To what my longest Days I ow;
And I recant the Praises I
Have often tun'd so high
To goodly June's most florid Powers,
And lofty Cancers sixteen golden Houres.

2

It is not June, nor Cancer which
The Ev'n so farr from Morn doth stretch,
Charming Heavns Flame to loyter heer
About our hemisphear.
O no! the courteous summer Sun
Which gives the Days true length is LOVE alone.

3

Witness this blessed Week, which, though
The Days now shrinck & shorter grow,
Disdaineth to be measured by
That Moneth or Year, which I
Spun out before, &, having done,
Found my vain Thred was into Nothing run.

4

The further Vanitie doth spread,
The less, & shorter is its Thred;
And Emptines, the more it grows,
Onely the more doth loose.
Such were my Moneths & Years, till I
Began to trade in LOVES deer History.

5

But now my Days so long appear,
That in each Week, I live a Year:
My better Years I reckon by
LOVES Motions; & I
Have found a way each Week to run
Through the whole Circle of my deerest SUN.

6

And yet that dainty Bliss, by which
My Days to such sweet lengths do stretch;
So strangely shrinks them up again,
That in the shriveld reign
Of Capricorn, clung Winter is
Pent up in Days less scant & short than these:

7

Than these, these Summer Days of mine;
In which now LOVE alone doth shine,
His mighty Beam's delicious Tide
Pours out it self so wide,
That every Day would take its flight
To bed too soon, though 'twere an Age to Night.

8

For, what's an Age to those deer Sweets
Whose boundless Ocean duely meets
My Meditations, whersoe'r
My Soule her bark doth steer?
That bark, which though for evermore
It sails, yet cannot reach this Oceans shore.

9

My Days look but like Minutes now,
My Houres like wretched Nothings show:
Whilst yet me thinks I but Begin
The Evening rusheth in;
And over all the world 'tis night
Whilst in my Soule 'tis yet but New daylight.

10

This is LOVES sweet & heavnly sport,
To make my Days so long, & short;
That so they may a Shaddow be
Of his Eternitie,
Which, though beyond all Time it swell,
Yet is an Instant its best Parallel.

11

And straitned in this Vastnes may
I ever be! Let every Day
Less than a Minute seem; yet such
As no Age can outreach:
Whilst my Devotions sweetly rove
In this deer Riddle of divinest LOVE.

12

For, what's this empty World to Me,
Who finde no Fullnes, butt in Thee?
In Thee, great LOVE, who onely art
The Soverain of my Heart:
My Heart, which Thou so strongly by
Thy Sweetnes fir'st, that it must LOVE, or dy.





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