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O give me, Thy slave, at length,
Easing aid, or bearing strength.

And some gracious token show me,
That my
foes that watch t' o'erthrow me,
May be shamed and vexed to see
Thee to help and comfort me.

PARAPHRASE OF PSALM XIII.

LORD, how long, how long wilt Thou
Quite forget and quite neglect me?
How long with a frowning brow

Wilt Thou from thy sight reject me?

How long shall I seek a way

From this range of thoughts perplexed, Where my grieved mind, night and day, Is with thinking tired and vexed!

How long shall my stormful foe,

On my fall his greatness placing, Build upon my overthrow,

And be graced by my disgracing?

Hear, O Lord and God, my cries,
Mock my foe's unjust abusing,
And illuminate mine eyes,

Heavenly beams in them infusing.

Lest my woes too great to bear,
And too infinite in number,
Rock me soon, 'twixt Hope and Fear,
Into Death's eternal slumber.

These black clouds will overblow,
Sunshine shall have his returning,
And my grief-dulled heart, I know,
Into joy shall change his mourning.

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JOSEPH BRYAN

WAS apparently a contemporary of Davison. There is much beauty

in the following

PARAPHRASE OF PSALM LXV.

DWELLERS beyond Thule's bands,
In fair lands,

At thy signs shall be affrighted.
Morn's bright gate, and ruddy west,
By their guest,

Are with light and heat delighted.
Furrows else ploughed, sowed in vain,
By thy rain.

Are with blades and ears maintained.
Thou sendest rain into thy dales,
And the vales,

Pranking them with curious flowers;
And the stiffened earth mak'st soft
With thy oft

Sweet and soft descending showers.
Thou dost speed the seedman's hand,
In the land

His dead-seeming seed reviving;

And the tender bud, unless

Thou didst bless,

Blasts and frosts would keep from thriving.
There thy gracious showers still

Fall, and fill

With thy blessing barren places;
And the lesser hills are seen,

Fresh and green,

Decked with Flora's various graces.

JOHN DONNE.

JOHN DONNE was born in London, in 1573. He entered Hertford College at the early age of eleven, and became a prodigy of learning. He was bred a Catholic, but early in life he became a Protestant minister. He died, Dean of St. Paul's, in 1631. Without being in the strictest sense a sacred poet, Donne is one of those writers who have shown their reverence of religion with the warmth and sincerity of genuine feeling. He is frequently rugged and obscure, yet he displays a depth of sentiment and an originality of thought, which entitle him to a rank among the truest poets.

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THOU hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday.
I dare not move my dim eyes any way;
Despair behind, and death before, doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh,
Only Thou art above, and when towards Thee,

By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,

That not one hour myself I can sustain ;

Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And Thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.

II.

THIS is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint
My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race
Idly yet quickly run, hath this last pace;
My span's last inch, my minute's latest point;

And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint
My body and my soul, and I shall sleep a space;
But my ever-waking part shall see that face
Whose fear already shakes my every joint :

Then as my soul, to heaven, her first seat, takes flight,
And earth-born body, in the earth shall dwell,
So fall my sins, that all may have their right,

To where they're bred, and would press me to hell. Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,

For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.

III.

Ar the round earth's imagined corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, your numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go

All whom the flood did, and fire shall, o'erthrow;
All whom war, death, age, agues, tyrannies,

Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's wo:
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;
For if above all these my sins abound,

'Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace

When we are there; here, on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent; for that's as good
As if Thou hadst sealed my pardon with thy blood.

IV.

DEATH, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou thinkest thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow: And soonest our best men with thee do

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

go,

Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms, can make us sleep as well,

And better, than thy stroke; why swellest thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally;

And death shall be no more; Death! thou must die.

ODE.

VENGEANCE will sit above our faults; but till
She there do sit

We see her not, nor them. Thus blind, yet still
We lead her way; and thus, whilst we do ill,
We suffer it.

Unhappy he whom youth makes not beware
Of doing ill:

Enough we labor under age and care:
In number, th' errors of the last place are
The greater still.

Yet we, that should the ill we now begin
As soon repent,

(Strange thing!) perceive not; our faults are not seen, But past us; neither felt, but only in

The punishment.

But we know ourselves least; mere outward shows

Our minds so store,

That our souls, no more than our eyes, disclose

But form and color; only he who knows

Himself, knows more.

HYMN TO CHRIST.

AT THE AUTHOR'S LAST GOING INTO GERMANY.

In what torn ship soever I embark,
That ship shall be my emblem of thy ark;

What sea soever swallow me, that flood

Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood;

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