Virtue
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky:
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night; For thou must die.
Sweet rose, whose hue angry and
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die.
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes, And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives.5. angry and brave: red and splendid.10. sweets: perfumes. 11. closes: final cadence ; also with the ordinary sense. gives: gives way.15. coal: cinders ; i.e., at the day of judgment.
George Herbert
Other author posts
Bitter-Sweet
Ah, my deare angrie Lord, Since thou dost love, yet strike; Cast down, yet help afford; Sure I will do the like
Man
My God, I heard this That none doth build a stately habitation But he that means to dwell therein What house more stately hath there been,
Easter
Rise heart; thy lord is risen Sing his praise Without delayes, Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise With him mayst rise: That, as his death calcinèd thee to dust,
Faith
Lord how couldst thou so much Thy wrath for sinne, as when mans sight was dimme, And could see little, to regard his ease, And bring by Faith all things to him Hungrie I was, and had no meat: