No More Learning

6 Thou in the lowest pit profound'
Hast set me all forlorn,
Where thickest darkness hovers round,
In horrid deeps to mourn.
7 Thy wrath from which no shelter saves
Full sore doth press on me; 30
*Thou break'st upon me all thy waves, *The Heb.
*And all thy waves break me bears both.
8 Thou dost my friends from me estrange,
And mak'st me odious,
Me to them odious, for they change,
And I here pent up thus.
9 Through sorrow, and affliction great
Mine eye grows dim and dead,
Lord all the day I thee entreat,
My hands to thee I spread. 40
10 Wilt thou do wonders on the dead,
Shall the deceas'd arise
And praise thee from their loathsom bed
With pale and hollow eyes?
11 Shall they thy loving kindness tell
On whom the grave hath hold,
Or they who in perdition dwell
Thy faithfulness unfold?
12 In darkness can thy mighty hand
Or wondrous acts be known, 50
Thy justice in the gloomy land
Of dark oblivion?
13 But I to thee O Lord do cry
E're yet my life be spent,
And up to thee my praier doth hie
Each morn, and thee prevent.
14 Why wilt thou Lord my soul forsake,
And hide thy face from me,
15 That am already bruis'd, and *shake *Heb. Prae Concussione.
With terror sent from thee; 60
Bruz'd, and afflicted and so low
As ready to expire,
While I thy terrors undergo
Astonish'd with thine ire.
16 Thy fierce wrath over me doth flow
Thy threatnings cut me through.
17 All day they round about me go,
Like waves they me persue.
18 Lover and friend thou hast remov'd
And sever'd from me far.
70
They fly me now whom I have lov'd,
And as in darkness are.


Finis.




COLLECTION OF PASSAGES TRANSLATED IN THE PROSE WRITINGS.




[From Of Reformation in England, 1641. ]


Ah Constantine, of how much ill was cause
Not thy Conversion, but those rich demains
That the first wealthy Pope receiv'd of thee.
DANTE, Inf. xix. 115.

Founded in chast and humble Poverty,
'Gainst them that rais'd thee dost thou lift thy horn,
Impudent whoore, where hast thou plac'd thy hope?
In thy Adulterers, or thy ill got wealth?
Another Constantine comes not in hast.
PETRARCA, Son. 108.

And to be short, at last his guid him brings
Into a goodly valley, where he sees
A mighty mass of things strangely confus'd
Things that on earth were lost or were abus'd.
. .