 | Divine Poems |  |
95
Upon the setting of a Clock-Larum.
O what a drowzie lump of flesh is man!Whose life being no longer then a span,
Great part of that short span is past away
In sleep, so that 'tis hard for us to say,
Whether we live or no; for whiles that we
Repose our selves, dead to our selves we be,
Without all motion and intelligence,
Till this shril Larum quicken our dulsense,
And make us living souls to th' day arise,
Like Adam when he opened first his eyes.
Yet this sleep's short and sweet, if we compare
It to that other wherein many are
Profoundly steep'd: a spiritual sleep in sin
The major part o'th' world is drowned in;
That but the Body's nap we know to be,
This the souls everlasting Lethargy,
Unlesse God waken it; to that intent
He hath to man a treble Larum sent;
His Word first from his Prophets mouth did beat
A Parley, and from sin sound a Retreat,
Saying, Thou sleeper wake, attention give
To what I say, hear and thy soul shall live;
Let not thy sins turn day into black night,
Rise from the dead and Christ shal give thee light.
And lest this Larum should not be of force
From this dead sleep in sin to raise a Course,
96
Besides the eare, pierceth the very heart;
His spirit it is, and when the other failes
To rouze the sleepie sinner, this prevailes.
But if his eares and heart be so fast barr'd,
That neither of these larums wil be heard,
Then sounds a third, Gods judgements powring down
Upon his head, and making it ring noone,
Flashing like lightning, ratling too like thunder,
Parting his soule and body far asunder,
Til so from sleep in sin he fal at last
To sleep in death, and in the grave is cast,
From which he shall not wake before he heare
Th' Archangels dreadful larum in his eare,
Saying, Arise ye dead, to judgment come,
And from Christs mouth receive your final doome.
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