Let mans Soul be a Sphere, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other Spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey:
Pleasure or business, our Souls admit
For their First Mover, and are whirl’d by it.
Hence is’t, that I am carried towards the West
This day, when my Souls form bends toward the East.
There I should see a Sun, by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget;
But that Christ on this Cross, did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees Gods face, that is self life, must dye; (harkening to Genesis and Moses)
What a death were it then to see God die?
It made his own Lieutenant Nature shrink,
It made his footstool crack, and the Sun wink.
Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,
And tune all spheares at once peirc’d with those holes?
Could I behold that endless height which is
Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood which is
The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,
Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne
By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,
Who was Gods partner here, and furnish’d thus
Half of that Sacrifice, which ransom’d us?
Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,
They’are present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and thou look’st towards me,
O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree;
I turne my back to thee, but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish me,
Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,
Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,
That thou may’st know me, and I’ll turn my face.
In my anguish... 