Mel Heliconium or, Poeticall Honey, Gathered out of The Weeds of Parnassus ... By Alexander Rosse |
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GANIMEDES.
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 | CHAP. VII. G Mel Heliconium |  |
GANIMEDES.
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Whose love is not like ours; we dote upon
The peeling, shell, and outward fashion
Of things, but Gods love is spirituall:
The inward beauty he affects,
And outward vanity rejects;
A pleasing look, a velvet skin,
Are toyes he takes no pleasure in.
Did Roses in our cheeks, and Lillies dwell,
And were our dangling tresses gold, our eyes
Like twinkling Tapers in the rowling skies,
And did our breath like fragrant gardens smell;
Yet if we be not fair within,
But if our souls be stain'd with sin;
For all our outward form, we are
But like the painted Sepulchre.
Although our lips were like a Chrystall spring,
From which flow streams of sweetest Eloquence,
Which ravisheth the heart, and charms the sence;
And though our tongues could like a Cymball ring:
Yea, though the richest Magazine
Of graces could in us be seen;
Yet if within we be but fair,
God will not for our outside care.
He is the fairest Ganymede, whose minde
Is pure and fair, whose heart is white as snow,
Whose thoughts in whitenesse doth the Swans out-go,
Whose life is bright as gold that is refin'd:
He who hath these perfections,
Shall flye on Eagles pinions,
And shall be mounted far above
All earthly things to serve great Jove.
But Christ is he whose beauty far excells
The fading beauty of our humane race,
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In whom all goodnesse and perfection dwels;
He was a harmlesse spotlesse Dove,
The Center of his Fathers love;
The object of my chief desires,
And he in whom my soul respires.
Who on the wing of his Divinity
Was elevated far above our sight,
And now inhabits that eternall light
Which with our mortall eyes we cannot see;
He Nectar of his merit pow'rs
Before his Father, and down show'rs
On us his graces from above,
Out of the bottles of his love.
O if some cloud-dividing Eagle would
Under my feet spread forth his airy wings;
And lift my minde from these inferiour things,
That I my God in glory might behold:
Lord let my prayer pierce the skies,
And from the bottles of mine eyes
Receive the Nectar of my tears,
And drink them with thy gracious ears.
O if I could with Eagles pinions cleave
The highest clouds, and with their piercing eye
Could my Redeemer in his glory see,
Triumphing over death, and o're the grave:
And as the Eagles do repair
To places where dead bodies are;
So where thy flesh is, Lord let me
Resort, that I may feed on thee.
And when my soul shall leave this house of clay,
Command thy winged Messengers (who still
Are ready to obey thy blessed will)
To be my soul-supporters in that day:
And in the Resurrection,
When soul and body meets in one,
Let them uphold me then and there,
Where I shall meet thee in the air.
| CHAP. VII. G Mel Heliconium | |