I dare not say I will, but wish I may; My pride is checked: high words the speaker spilt. My good, O Lord, thy gift--thy strength, my stay-- Give what thou bidst, and then bid what thou wilt. Work with me what of me thou dost request; Then will I dare the worst and love the best. Here, from another poem, are two little stanzas worth preserving: Yet God's must I remain, By death, by wrong, by shame; I cannot blot out of my heart That grace wrought in his name. I cannot set at nought, Whom I have held so dear; I cannot make Him seem afar That is indeed so near. The following poem, in style almost as simple as a ballad, is at once of the quaintest and truest. Common minds, which must always associate a certain conventional respectability with the forms of religion, will think it irreverent. I judge its reverence profound, and such none the less that it is pervaded by a sweet and delicate tone of holy humour. The very title has a glimmer of the glowing heart of Christianity: NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP. Behold a silly,[69] tender babe, In freezing winter night, In homely manger trembling lies; Alas! a piteous sight. The inns are full; no man will yield This little pilgrim bed; But forced he is with silly beasts In crib to shroud his head. Despise him not for lying there; First what he is inquire: An orient pearl is often found In depth of dirty mire. Weigh not his crib, his wooden dish, Nor beasts that by him feed; Weigh not his mother's poor attire, Nor Joseph's simple weed. This stable is a prince's court, The crib his chair of state; The beasts are parcel of his pomp, The wooden dish his plate. The persons in that poor attire His royal liveries wear; The Prince himself is come from heaven: This pomp is praised there. With joy approach, O Christian wight; Do homage to thy King; And highly praise this humble pomp, Which he from heaven doth bring. Another, on the same subject, he calls _New Heaven, New War_. It is fantastic to a degree. One stanza, however, I like much: This little babe, so few days old, Is come to rifle Satan's fold; All hell doth at his presence quake, Though he himself for cold do shake; For in this weak, unarmed wise, The gates of hell he will surprise. There is profoundest truth in the symbolism of this. Here is the latter half of a poem called _St. Peters Remorse_: Did mercy spin the thread To weave injustice' loom? Wert then a father to conclude With dreadful judge's doom? It is a small relief To say I was thy child, If, as an ill-deserving foe, From grace I am exiled. I was, I had, I could-- All words importing want; They are but dust of dead supplies, Where needful helps are scant. Once to have been in bliss That hardly can return, Doth but bewray from whence I fell, And wherefore now I mourn.