Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch

Dear Night! this world's defeat; The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb; The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat Which none disturb! Christ's progress, and His prayer-time; The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.

Happy those early days, when I Shined in my angel-infancy! Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race.

As men are killed by fighting, the truth is lost in disputing.

Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven.

There is in God — some say — A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here Say it is late and dusky, because they See not all clear. O for that Night! where I in Him Might live invisible and dim!

My gazing soul would dwell an hour, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity; Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, Or had the black art to dispense