 | The Shorter Poems of Ralph Knevet |  |
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[56] Hardnes
Th' obdurate Adamant disdaines to feeleThe hardest Chesills edge;
Submitting neither unto stone, nor steele;
Yet many doe alleadge,
That the warme bloud of Goates, hath power on
This unrelenting stone:
But for the bloud of an unspotted Lambe,
I humbly will entreate,
A hard, and refractory heart to tame,
Made of obdurate Jeate:
For this doth take away all hardnes quite,
And changeth black to white.
Droppes, by their frequent distillation,
Doe pretty cesternes make,
In hardest flints': (Oh Thou) the cornerstone,
Vouchsafe my teares to take,
Into thy bosome, where they may impresse,
A sense of my distresse.
Oh let those liquid rubyes, trickleing from
The Cinque ports of thy wounds,
Make my hard contumacious heart become,
Like overflowed grounds:
Then floods of penitentiall teares I'le bring,
T'increase thy mercyes spring.
| The Shorter Poems of Ralph Knevet | |