A HYMN FOR A WIDOWER OR A WIDOW.

THE voice which I did more esteem
Than Music in her sweetest key,
Those eyes which unto me did seem
More comfortable than the day,

These now by me as they have been,
Shall never more be heard or seen;

But what I once enjoyed in them

Shall seem hereafter as a dream.

1

All earthly comforts vanish thus,
So little hold of them have we,
That we from them or they from us
May in a moment ravished be;

Yet we are neither just nor wise,
If present mercies we despise,

Or mind not how there may be made

A thankful use of what we had.

I therefore do not so bemoan,

Though these beseeming tears I drop,

The loss of my beloved one,

As they that are deprived of hope;
But, in expressing of my grief,
My heart receiveth some relief,

And joyeth in the good I had,
Although my sweets are bitter made.

Lord! keep me faithful to the trust
Which my dear spouse reposed in me,
To him now dead preserve me just
In all that should performèd be;

For though our being man and wife
Extendeth only to this life,

Yet neither life nor death should end
The being of a faithful friend.

"Hallelujah,' Part III. Hymn 27.

THE FIRST MARTYR.

LORD, with what zeal did Thy first Martyr breathe

Thy blessed truth, to such as him withstood !
With what stout mind embraced he his death!

A holy witness sealing with his blood!

The praise is Thine, that him so strong didst make,
And blest is he, that died for Thy sake.

Unquenched love in him appeared to be,
When for his murderous foes he did intreat :
A piercing eye made bright by faith had he,
For he beheld Thee in Thy glory set;
And so unmoved his patience he did keep,
He died, as if he had but fall'n asleep.

Our lukewarm hearts with his hot zeal inflame,

So constant and so loving let us be;

So let us, living, glorify Thy name;

So let us, dying, fix our eyes on Thee:

And when the sleep of death shall us o'ertake,
With him, to life eternal, us awake.

Hymn for St. Stephen's Day.

HENRY KING, D.D.

BORN A.D. 1591; DIED A.D. 1669.

HENRY KING was the son of Dr. John King, Bishop of London. He was in succession appointed Prebend of St. Paul's, Archdeacon of Colchester, and Dean of Rochester. In 1641, he became Bishop of Chichester; but, in the following year, Chichester was besieged and taken by the Parliamentary forces, and the bishop was made prisoner. He lived in retirement till the Restoration, when he was recalled to his see, and died, 1669.

His poetical fame rests chiefly on the touching elegy in which he has recorded his grief and desolation on the loss of his beloved wife; but this poem cannot be considered to fall within the compass of the present work. The three brief pieces which follow will suffice to illustrate the real power and beauty of many of his thoughts.

SIC VITA.

LIKE to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
E'en such is man, whose borrow'd light
Is straight call'd in, and paid to-night.
The wind blows out; the bubble dies;
The spring entomb'd in autumn lies;
The dew dries up; the star is shot;
The flight is past-and man forgot.

MY MIDNIGHT MEDITATION.

ILL-BUSIED Man! why shouldst thou take such care To lengthen out thy life's short kalendar?

When every spectacle thou look'st upon

Presents and acts thy execution.

Each drooping season and each flower doth cry, "Fool! as I fade and wither, thou must die."

The beating of thy pulse (when thou art well)
Is just the tolling of thy passing bell:
Night is thy hearse, whose sable canopy
Covers alike deceased day and thee.

And all those weeping dews which nightly fall
Are but the tears shed for thy funeral.

THE DIRGE.

WHAT is th' existence of man's life

But open war, or slumber'd strife;
Where sickness to his sense presents

The combat of the elements;

And never feels a perfect peace

Till Death's cold hand signs his release ?

It is a storm-where the hot blood

Outvies in rage the boiling flood;

And each loose passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which beats his bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower-which buds and grows,
And withers as the leaves disclose;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep;
Then shrinks into that fatal mould
Where its first being was enroll'd.