Schola Cordis or the Heart of it Selfe, gone away from God ::

Oft have I call'd thee: O returne at last,
Returne unto thine heart: let the time past
Suffice thy wanderings: know that to cherish
Revolting still is a meer will to perish.

Ode. 11.

Christ.
Returne O wanderer, returne, returne.
Let me not alwayes wast my words in vaine
As I have done too long. Why dost thou spurn
And kick the counsells that should bring thee back again?

The Soule.
What's this that checks my course? Me thinks I feel
A cold remisnesse seising on my mind:
My stagger'd resolutions seem to reel,
As though they had in hast forgot mine heart behind.

Christ.
Returne, O wanderer, returne, returne.
Thou art already gone too farre away,
It is enough: unlesse thou meane to burne
In hell for ever, stop thy course at last and stay.

The Soule.
There's something holds me back, I cannot move

Forward one foot: me thinks the more I strive
The lesse I stirre. Is there a pow'r above
My will in me, that can my purposes reprive?

Christ.
No power of thine own: 't is I, that lay
Mine hand upon thine haste: whose will can make
The restlesse motions of the heavens stay,
Stand still, turne back againe, or new found courses take.

The Soule.
What? am I riveted, or rooted here?
That neither forward, nor on either side
I can get loose? Then there's no hope I feare,
But I must back againe, what ever me betide.

Christ.
And back again thou shalt. I'll have it so.
Though thou hast hitherto my voyce neglected,
Now I have handed thee, I'll have thee know,
That what I will have done shall not be uneffected.

The Soule.
Thou wilt prevaile then, and I must returne.
But how? or whither? when a world of shame,
And sorrow, lie before me, and I burne
With horror in my self to think upon the same.

9

Shall I returne to thee? Alas, I have
No hope to be received: a runne-away,
A rebell to returne! mad men may rave
Of mercy miracles, but what will Justice say?

10

Shall I returne to mine owne heart? Alas,
'Tis lost, and dead, and rotten long ago,
I cannot find it what at first it was,
And it hath been too long the cause of all my woe.

11

Shall I forsake my pleasures, and delights,
My profits, honours, comforts, and contents,
For that, the thought whereof my mind affrights,
Repentant sorrow, that the soule asunder rents?

12

Shall I returne, that cannot though I would?
I, that had strength enough to go astray,
Find my self faint, and feeble, now I should
Returne I cannot runne, I cannot creep this way.

13

What shall I doe? Forward I must not goe,
Backward I cannot: if I tarry here,
I shall be drowned in a world of woe,
And antidate mine own damnation by despaire.

14

But is't not better hold that which I have,
Then unto future expectation trust?
Oh no: to reason thus is but to rave.
Therefore returne I will, because returne I must.

Christ.
Returne, and welcome: if thou wilt thou shalt.
Although thou canst not of thy selfe, yet I,
That call, can make thee able. Let the fault
Be mine, if when thou wilt returne I let thee lie.

University of Virginia Library

The returning of the Heart.

Epigr. 11.

Ode. 11.

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