3 Would the world now adopt me for her heir, Would beauty's queen entitle me 'the fair,' Fame speak me Fortune's minion, could I vie Angels[1] with India; with a speaking eye Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike Justice dumb As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue To stones by epitaphs; be call'd great master In the loose rhymes of every poetaster; Could I be more than any man that lives, Great, fair, rich, wise, all in superlatives: Yet I more freely would these gifts resign, Than ever fortune would have made them mine; And hold one minute of this holy leisure Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure. 4 Welcome, pure thoughts! welcome, ye silent groves! These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves. Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring; A prayer-book now shall be my looking-glass, In which I will adore sweet Virtue's face; Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares, No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-faced fears: Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly, And learn to affect a holy melancholy; And if Contentment be a stranger then, I'll ne'er look for it but in heaven again. [1] 'Angels:' a species of coin. A MEDITATION. O thou great Power! in whom we move, By whom we live, to whom we die, Behold me through thy beams of love, Whilst on this couch of tears I lie, And cleanse my sordid soul within By thy Christ's blood, the bath of sin. No hallow'd oils, no gums I need, No new-born drams of purging fire; One rosy drop from David's seed Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire: O precious ransom! which once paid, That _Consummatum est_ was said. And said by him, that said no more, But seal'd it with his sacred breath: Thou then, that has dispurged our score, And dying wert the death of death, Be now, whilst on thy name we call, Our life, our strength, our joy, our all! RICHARD CORBET.