Vpon The Bleeding Crucifix: A Song.[32]

I.

IIESU, no more! It is full tide: From Thy head and from Thy feet, From Thy hands and from Thy side All the purple riuers meet.

II.

What need Thy fair head bear a part In showres, as if Thine eyes had none? What need they help to drown Thy heart, That striues in torrents of it's own?

III.

Water'd by the showres they bring, The thornes that Thy blest browe encloses (A cruell and a costly spring) Conceiue proud hopes of proving roses.

IV.

Thy restlesse feet now cannot goe For vs and our eternall good, As they were euer wont. What though? They swimme, alas! in their own floud.

V.

Thy hand to giue Thou canst not lift; Yet will Thy hand still giuing be. It giues, but O itself's the gift: It giues though bound; though bound 'tis free.

VI.

But O Thy side, Thy deep-digg'd side! That hath a double Nilus going: Nor euer was the Pharian tide Half so fruitfull, half so flowing.

VII.

No hair so small, but payes his riuer To this Red Sea of Thy blood; Their little channells can deliuer Somthing to the generall floud.

VIII.

But while I speak, whither are run All the riuers nam'd before? I counted wrong: there is but one; But O that one is one all ore.

IX.

Rain-swoln riuers may rise proud, Bent all to drown and overflow; But when indeed all's ouerflow'd, They themselues are drowned too.

X.

This Thy blood's deluge (a dire chance, Dear Lord, to Thee) to vs is found A deluge of deliuerance; A deluge least we should be drown'd. lest N'ere wast Thou in a sense so sadly true, The well of liuing waters, Lord, till now.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

The title in 1646 is 'On the bleeding wounds of our crucified Lord:' in 1648 has 'body' for 'wounds:' in 1670 as 1646. I record these variations, &c.:

St. i. lines 2 and 3, in 1646 and 1670 read

'From Thy hands and from Thy feet, From Thy head and from Thy side.'

So the SANCROFT MS.

St. ii. In 1646 and 1670 this stanza is the 5th, and in line 2 has 'teares' for 'showres.'

St. iii. This stanza, by some strange oversight, is wholly dropped in 1652. St. iii. not in SANCROFT MS., and our st. ii. is the last. On one of the fly-leaves of the copy of 1646 edition in Trinity College, Cambridge, is the following contemporary MS. epigram, which embodies the sentiment of the stanza:

'In caput Xti spinis coronatum. Cerno Caput si Christe tuum mihi vertitur omne In spinis illud, quod fuit ante rosa.'

Turnbull gives the stanza, but misplaces it after our st. vi., overlooking that our st. ii. is in 1646 edition st. v.

St. iv. line 1: in 1646 and 1670 'they' for 'now.'

Line 3, ib. 'as they are wont'--evident inadvertence, as 'ever' is required by the measure.

Line 4, ib. 'blood' for 'floud:' so also in 1648.

St. v. line 1, ib. 'hand' for 'hands:' 'hand' in 1648, and in SANCROFT MS.: adopted. Line 4, 'dropps' in SANCROFT MS. for 'gives.'

St. vi. line 3. Our text (1652) prints 'pharian,' the Paris printer spelling (and mis-spelling) without comprehending the reference to Pharaoh.

St. vii. line 1, in 1646 and 1670 'not a haire but ...'

St. ix. line 3, in 1648 a capital in 'All's.' G.

TO THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME, THE NAME OF IESVS: