Come, lovely Name; life of our hope!
Lo we hold our hearts wide ope!
Unlock thy cabinet of day
Dearest sweet, and come away.
Lo how the thirsty lands
Gasp for thy golden show’rs, with longstretch’d hands.
Lo how the lab’ring earth
That hopes to be
All heaven by thee,
Leaps at thy birth.
Come Royal Name, and pay th’expense
Of all this precious patience.
O come away
And kill the death of this delay.
O see, so many worlds of barren years
Melted and measured out in seas of tears.
O see the weary lids of wakeful hope
(Love’s eastern windows) all wide ope
With curtains drawn,
To catch the daybreak of thy dawn.

Richard Crashaw (1612/3-1649)

O Lord, in me there lieth naught
But to thy search revealed lies,
For when I sit
Thou markedst it;
No less thou notest when I rise;
Yea, closest closet of my thought
Hath open windows to thine eyes.

Thou walkest with me when I walk;
When to my bed for rest I go,
I find thee there,
And everywhere:
Not youngest thought in me doth grow,
No, not one word I cast to talk
But yet unuttered thou dost know.

Mary Sidney (1561-1621)

Lord, I will mean and speak thy praise,
Thy praise alone,
My busie heart shall spin it all my dayes:
And when it stops for want of store,
Then will I wring it with a sigh or grone,
That thou mayst still have more.

Thousands of things do thee employ
In ruling all
This spacious globe: Angels must have their joy,
Devils their rod, the sea his shore,
The windes their stint: and yet when I did call,
Thou heardst my call, and more.

Wherefore I sing. Yet since my heart,
Though press’d, runnes thin;
O that I might some other hearts convert,
And so take up at use great store:
That to thy chests there might be coming in
Both all my praise, and more!

George Herbert (1593-1633)

Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gage;
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.

Blood must be my body’s balmer;
No other balm shall there be given:
Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer,
Travelleth t’ward the land of heav’n;
Over the silver mountains,
Where spring the nectar fountains;
There will I kiss
The bowl of bliss;
And drink mine everlasting fill
Upon every milken hill.
My soul will be a-dry before;
But, after, it will thirst no more

Sir Walter Raleigh (?1552-1618)

King of Glorie, King of Peace,
With the one make warre to cease;
With the other blesse thy sheep,
Thee to love, in thee to sleep.
Let not Sinne devoure thy fold,
Bragging that thy bloud is cold,
That thy flesh hath lost his food,
And thy Crosse is common wood.

George Herbert (1593-1633)