Enlarge that soul, which base presumption binds;
Thy justice cannot loose what mercy finds;
O thou that wilt not bruise the broken reed,
Rub not my sores, nor prick the wounds that bleed.
LORD, if the peevish infant fights and flies,
With unpar'd weapons, at his mother's eyes,
Her frowns (half mix'd with smiles,) may chance
to show

An angry love-tick on his arm, or so;
Where, if the babe but make a lip and cry,
Her heart begins to melt, and by and by

She coaxes his dewy cheeks; her babe she blesses,
And chokes her language with a thousand kisses;
I am that child: lo, here I prostrate lie,
Pleading for mercy; I repent and cry
For gracious pardon: let thy gentle ears

Hear that in words, what mothers judge in tears:
See not my frailties, LORD, but through my fear,
And look on ev'ry trespass through a tear:
Then calm thine anger, and appear more mild;
Remember, th' art a father, I a child.

S. BERN. Ser. xxi. in Cant.

Miserable man! who shall deliver me from the reproach of this shameful bondage? I am a miserable man, but a free man: free, because like to God; miserable, because against GoD: O keeper of mankind, why hast thou set me as a mark against thee? thou hast set me, because thou hast not hindered me: It is just that thy enemy should be my enemy, and that he who repugneth thee, should repugn me: I, who am against thee, am against myself.

EPIG. 6.

But form'd, and fight! but born, and then rebel! How small a blast will make a bubble swell? But dares the floor affront the hand that laid it? So apt is dust to fly in's face that made it.

Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy?

WHY dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why Does that eclipsing hand so long deny

The sunshine of thy soul-enlivening eye?

L

One was their sire, one was their common me
Plants are his sisters, and the beast his broth
The elder too; beasts draw the selfsame brea*
Wax old alike, and die the selfsame death:
Plants grow as he, with fairer robes array'd;
Alike they flourish, and alike they fade:
The beast in sense exceeds him, and in growth.
The three-ag'd oak doth thrice exceed them both.
Why look'st thou then so big, thou little span
Of earth; what art thou more in being man?
I, but my great Creator did inspire

My chosen earth with the diviner fire

Of reason; gave me judgment and a will;
That, to know good; this, to choose good from ili
He puts the reins of pow'r in my free hand,
A jurisdiction over sea and land;
He gave me art to lengthen out my span
Of life, and made me all, in being man :
1. but thy passion has committed treason
Against the sacred person of thy reason:
Try judgment is corrupt, perverse thy will;
That knows no good, and this makes choice of ill:
The greater height sends down the deeper fall;
And good declin'd, turns bad, turns worst of all,
Say then, proud inch of living earth, what can
Thy greatness claim the more in being man?
O but my soul transcends the pitch of nature,
Borne up by th` image of her high Creator;
Outbraces the life of reason, and bears down
Her waxen wings, kicks off her brazen crown.