The Place of the Blest

Text:

I

THE CAROL OF THE ROSE

(To his Saviour, a child;

a present, by a child.)

Go pretty child, and bear this flower

Unto thy little Saviour;

And tell him, by that bud now blown,

He is the Rose of Sharon known:

When thou hast said so, stick it there

Upon his bib and stomacher:

And tell him (for good handsell too)

That thou hast brought a whistle new,

Made of a clean and oaten reed,

To charm his cries (at time of need):

Tell him, for coral, thou hast none,

But if thou hadst, he should have one;

But poor thou art, and known to be

Even as moniless as he.

Lastly, if thou canst win a kiss

From those mellifluous lips of his,

Then never take a second one

To spoil the first impression.

II

THE PELICAN

PELLICANUS is the word

For a certain breed of bird

Who truly is a crane;

Egypt is his domain.

There are two kinds thereof;

Near to the Nile they live;

One of them dwells in the flood,

The fishes are his food;

The other lives in the isles

On lizards, crocodiles,

Serpents, and stinking creatures,

And beasts of evil nature.

In Greek his title was Onocrotalos,

Which is congium rostrum, said

In the Latin tongue instead,

Or long-beak in our own.

Of this bird it is known

That when he comes to his young,

They being grown and strong,

And does them kindly things,

And covers them with his wings,

The little birds begin

Fiercely to peck at him;

They tear at him and try

To blind their father’s eye.

He falls upon them then

And slays them with great pain,

Then goes away for a spell,

Leaving them where they fell.

On the third day he returns,

And thereupon he mourns,

Feeling so strong a woe

To see the small birds so

That he strikes his breast with his beak

Until the blood shall leak.

And when the coursing blood

Spatters his lifeless brood,

Such virtue does it have

That once again they live.

KNOW that this pelican

Signifies Mary’s Son;

The little birds are men

Restored to life again

From death, by that dear blood

Shed for us by our God.

Now learn one meaning more,

Revealed by holy lore:

Know why the small birds try

To peck their father’s eye,

Who turns on them in wrath

And puts them all to death.

Men who deny the light

Would blind God’s blazing sight,

But on such people all

His punishment will fall.

This is the meaning I find;

Now bear it well in mind.

III

THE PLACE OF THE BLEST

In this world (the Isle of Dreams)

While we sit by sorrow’s streams,

Tears and terrors are our themes

Reciting:

But when once from hence we fly,

More and more approaching nigh

Unto young eternity

Uniting:

In that whiter island, where

Things are evermore sincere;

Candor here, and lustre there

Delighting:

There no monstrous fancies shall

Out of hell an horror call,

To create (or cause at all)

Affrighting.

There in calm and cooling sleep

We our eyes shall never steep;

But eternal watch shall keep,

Attending.

Pleasures, such as shall pursue

Me immortaliz’d, and you;

And fresh joys as never to

Have ending.

IV

Alleluia. Amen.