The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations/Longing
For works with similar titles, see Longing.
¶ Longing.
With sick and famisht eyes,With doubling knees and weary bones,To thee my cries,To thee my grones,To thee my sighs, my tears ascend:No end?
My throat, my soul is hoarse;My heart is wither'd like a groundWhich thou dost curse.My thoughts turn round,And make me giddie; Lord, I fall,Yet call.
From thee all pitie flows.Mothers are kinde, because thou art,And dost disposeTo them a part:Their infants them; and they suck theeMore free.
Bowels of pitie, heare!Lord of my soul, love of my minde,Bow down thine eare!Let not the windeScatter my words, and in the sameThy Name!
Look on my sorrows round!Mark well my furnace! O what flames,What heats abound!What griefs, what shames!Consider, Lord; Lord, bow thine eare,And heare!
Lord Jesu, thou didst bowThy dying head upon the tree:O be not nowMore dead to me!Lord heare! Shall he that made the eare,Not heare?
Behold, thy dust doth stirre;It moves, it creeps, it aims at thee:Wilt thou deferreTo succour me,Thy pile of dust, wherein each crummeSayes, Come?
To thee help appertains.Hast thou left all things to their course,And laid the reinsUpon the horse?Is all lockt? hath a sinners pleaNo key?
Indeed the world's thy book,Where all things have their leaf assign'd:Yet a meek lookHath interlin'd.Thy board is full, yet humble guestsFinde nests.
Thou tarriest, while I die,And fall to nothing: thou dost reigne,And rule on high,While I remainIn bitter grief; yet am I stil'dThy childe.
Lord, didst thou leave thy throne,Not to relieve? how can it be,That thou art grownThus hard to me?Were sinne alive, good cause there wereTo bear.
But now both sinne is dead,And all thy promises live and bide:That wants his head;These speak and chide,And in thy bosome poure my tears,As theirs.
Lord Jesu, heare my heart,Which hath been broken now so long,That ev'ry partHath got a tongue!Thy beggars grow; rid them awayTo day.
My love, my sweetnesse, heare!By these thy feet, at which my heartLies all the yeare,Pluck out thy dart,And heal my troubled breast, which cryes,Which dyes.