Читать книгу Selected Works - George Herbert - Страница 56

O DAY most calm, most bright,

The fruit of this, the next world’s bud,

Th’ indorsement of supreme delight,

Writ by a friend, and with his bloud;

The couch of time; cares balm and bay;

The week were dark, but for thy light:

Thy torch doth show the way.

The other dayes and thou

Make up one man; whose face thou art,

Knocking at heaven with thy brow:

The worky-daies are the back-part;

The burden of the week lies there,

Making the whole to stoup and bow,

Till thy release appeare.

Man had straight forward gone

To endlesse death; but thou dost pull

And turn us round to look on one,

Whom, if we were not very dull,

We could not choose but look on still;

Since there is no place so alone

The which he doth not fill.

Sundaies the pillars are,

On which heav’n’s palace arched lies:

The other dayes fill up the spare

And hollow room with vanities.

They are the fruitfull beds and borders

In God’s rich garden: that is bare

Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundaies of man’s life,

Thredded together on Time’s string,

Make bracelets to adorn the wife

Of the eternall glorious King.

On Sunday heaven’s gate stands ope;

Blessings are plentifull and rife,

More plentifull then hope.

This day my Saviour rose,

And did inclose this light for his:

That, as each beast his manger knows,

Man might not of his fodder misse.

Christ hath took in this piece of ground,

And made a garden there for those

Who want herbs for their wound.

The rest of our Creation

Our great Redeemer did remove

With the same shake, which at his passion

Did th’ earth and all things with it move.

As Samson bore the doores away,

Christ’s hands, though nailed, wrought our salvation,

And did unhinge that day.

The brightnesse of that daye

We sullied by our foul offence:

Wherefore that robe we cast away,

Having a new at his expense,

Whose drops of bloud paid the full price,

That was requir’d to make us gay,

And fit for Paradise.

Thou art a day of mirth:

And where the week-dayes trail on ground,

Thy flight is higher, as thy birth:

O let me take thee at the bound,

Leaping with thee from sev’n to sev’n,

Till that we both, being toss’d from earth,

Flie hand in hand to heav’n!