Who loved much, and much more could move; Her art! whose memory must last Till truth through all the world be passed; Till his abused, despised flame Return to heaven, from whence it came, And send a fire down, that shall bring Destruction on his ruddy wing. Her art! whose pensive, weeping eyes, Were once sin's loose and tempting spies; But now are fixed stars, whose light Helps such dark stragglers to their sight. Self-boasting Pharisee! how blind A judge wert thou, and how unkind! It was impossible that thou, Who wert all false, shouldst true grief know. Is't just to judge her faithful tears By that foul rheum thy false eye wears? 'This woman,' sayst thou, 'is a sinner!' And sat there none such at thy dinner? Go, leper, go! wash till thy flesh Comes like a child's, spotless and fresh; He is still leprous that still paints: Who saint themselves, they are no saints. THE RAINBOW. Still young and fine! but what is still in view We slight as old and soiled, though fresh and new. How bright wert thou, when Shem's admiring eye Thy burnished, flaming arch did first descry! When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot, The youthful world's gray fathers in one knot, Did with intentive looks watch every hour For thy new light, and trembled at each shower! When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair, Forms turn to music, clouds to smiles and air: Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers. Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie Of thy Lord's hand, the object[1] of his eye! When I behold thee, though my light be dim, Distant, and low, I can in thine see him, Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne, And minds the covenant 'twixt all and one. O foul, deceitful men! my God doth keep His promise still, but we break ours and sleep. After the fall the first sin was in blood, And drunkenness quickly did succeed the flood; But since Christ died, (as if we did devise To lose him too, as well as paradise,) These two grand sins we join and act together, Though blood and drunkenness make but foul, foul weather. Water, though both heaven's windows and the deep Full forty days o'er the drowned world did weep, Could not reform us, and blood in despite, Yea, God's own blood, we tread upon and slight. So those bad daughters, which God saved from fire, While Sodom yet did smoke, lay with their sire. Then, peaceful, signal bow, but in a cloud Still lodged, where all thy unseen arrows shroud; I will on thee as on a comet look, A comet, the sad world's ill-boding book; Thy light as luctual and stained with woes I'll judge, where penal flames sit mixed and close. For though some think thou shin'st but to restrain Bold storms, and simply dost attend on rain; Yet I know well, and so our sins require, Thou dost but court cold rain, till rain turns fire. [1] Genesis ix. 16. THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY. MARK IV. 26.