Mel Heliconium :: :: University of Virginia Library

What means the Moon, to dote so much upon
The fair Endymeon?
Or why should man forsake his Soveraign good,
To catch an empty cloud?
From heaven shall any man for riches fall,
And lose his soul and all?
How can we sleep in such security,
As that we cannot see
Our dangers, nor that lamp, whose silver ray
Drives black-fac'd night away?
What madnesse is't for thee to lose thy share
Of heaven, for bubling air
Of honour, or of popular applause,
Which doth but envie cause,
And which is nothing but an empty winde,
That cannot fill the minde;
How changable is man in all his wayes,
Now grows, anon decayes;
Now cleere, then dark, now hates, anon affects,
Still changing his aspects.
Much like the Moon, who runs a wandring race,
And still doth change her face.
But Lord give me strait paths, and grant to me
The gift of constancie:
And quench in me, I pray, the sinfull fire
Of lust, and vain desire.
Be thou the onely object of my soul,
And free me from the hole
Of ignorance and dead security;
O when shall I once see
The never fading lustre of thy light,
To chace away my night;
The golden beauty of thy countenance
To clear my conscience.

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O Lord, thou cam'st to rouze Endymeon
Out of his dungeon,
Wrapp'd in the black vail of Chimerian night,
Who could not see the light
Of Moon or Star, untill thou didst display
Thy all-victorious ray;
Brighter then is fair Phœbe's glitt'ring face,
Which is the nights chief grace,
Whose silver light, as sometimes it does wain,
And then it primes again:
So was thy flesh eclipsed from it's light
By Pluto's horrid night,
And muffled for a while from that bright eye
Of thy Divinity.
But when black deaths interposition
Was overcome and gone,
The silver orb of thy humanity
Did shine more gloriously,
Then when the white-fac'd empresse of the night
Shines by her brothers light.
O rouze me from my drousinesse, that I
May see thy radient eye
Which pierceth all hearts with its golden beams,
From which such glory streams
That all the winged Legions admire;
Lord warm me with thy fire,
And stamp the favour of thy lips on mine,
Whose love exceeds new wine;
Then will I sing uncessantly thy praise,
And to thy honour will due Trophees raise.