SUNDAY.

The other days and thou

Make up one man, whose face thou art,
Knocking at heaven with thy brow;
The working days are the back part;
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoop and bow,
Till thy release appear.

The Sundays of man's life,
Threaded together on time's string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal glorious King.
On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope;
Blessings are plentiful and rife,

More plentiful than hope.

The rest of our creation

Our great Redeemer did remove

With the same shake which, at His passion,
Did the earth and all things with it move.

As Samson bore the doors away,

CHRIST'S hands, though nailed, wrought our salvation, And did unhinge that day.

The brightness of that day.

We sullied by our foul offence :

Wherefore that robe we cast away,

Having a new at His expense,

Whose drops of blood paid the full price
That was required to make us gay,

And fit for Paradise.

Thou art a day of mirth;

And where the week-days trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth.

Oh, let me take thee at the bound,

Leaping with thee from seven to seven,

Till that we both, being tossed from earth,
Fly hand in hand to heaven!

FRANCIS QUARLES. 1592-1644.
W hom have in Heaven but Thee?

LOVE, and have some cause to love, the Earth-
She is my Maker's creature, therefore good;
She is my mother, for she gave me birth;
She is my tender nurse, she gives me food;-
But what's a creature, LORD, compared with Thee?
Or what's my mother or my nurse to me?

WHOM HAVE I IN HEAVEN BUT THEE?

I love the Air, her dainty sweets refresh
My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me.
Her shrill-mouthed choir sustain me with their flesh,
And with their polyphonian notes delight me.
But what's the Air, or all the sweets that she
Can bless my soul withal, compared with Thee?

I love the Sea, she is my fellow-creature,
My careful purveyor, she provides me store;
She walls me round, she makes my diet greater,
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore.
But, LORD of Oceans, when compared with Thee,
What is the Ocean or her wealth to me?

To heaven's high city I direct my journey, Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye, Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney, Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky.

But what is heaven, great GOD, compared with Thee? Without Thy presence, heaven's no heaven to me.