Certaine Serious Thoughts which at severall times & upon sundry Occasions have stollen themselves into Verse and now into the Publike View from the Author: Together w[i]th a Chronologicall table denoeting the names of such Princes as ruled the neighbor States and were con-temporary to our English Kings, observeing throughout ye number of yeares w[hi]ch every one of them reigned [by Christopher Wyvill] |
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Gloria Cæli
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 | Certaine Serious Thoughts |  |
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Gloria Cæli
Stay, doe not black this Paper, for it isA better Emblem of the place of blisse
Then my dull pen can draw; 'tis pure and white
May serve to represent eternall light;
Hath neither spot nor wrinckle, none of them
May come within the new Ierusalem.
But how should paper, or my lines, which are
Composed both of ragges, such joyes declare
As never eye, nor eare, nor heart, nor braine
Of man within that small sphear could containe?
Yet may thy humble contemplation
Discern some glimpses by reflection:
Read then the glory of thy great Creator
In this large book the world, which is his Creature.
If wandring there thou chauncest to espy
An object that is glorious in thine eye,
Be it those greater, or the lesser lights
Innumerably sparkling in cleare nights;
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That pretious issue of inriched ground,
Doth from some costly root a flow'r arise,
Whose various colours please thy gazing eyes.
Do'st thou admire the structure of some face,
Which seem's to have engrossed every grace,
Hast thou observed all the excellence,
Wherewith Gods bounty feast's each severall sence?
Screw up thy meditation then, think, Lord
If to earth on earth thou art pleas'd t'afford
Such blessings, ô thrice happy sure they be
Who sainted are in blest Eternity.
| Certaine Serious Thoughts | |