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 blood;
The couch of time; care’s balm and bay: —
The week were dark, but for thy light;
Thy torch doth show the way.
The other days and thou
Make up one man; whose face thou art,
Knocking at heaven with thy brow;
The worky days are the back-part;
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoop and bow,
Till thy release appear.
Man had straight forward gone
To endless 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.
Sundays the pillars are
On which heaven’s palace arched lies:
The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitful bed and borders
In God’s rich garden; that is bare
Which parts their ranks and orders.
The Sundays of man’s life.
Threaded together on Time’s string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal, glorious King.
On Sunday, heaven’s gate stands ope;
Blessings are plentiful and rife;
More plentiful than 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 miss.
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 doors away,
Christ’s hands, though nailed, wrought our salvation,
And did unhinge that day.
The brightness of that day
We sullied by our foul offence;
Wherefore that robe we cast away.
Having a new at His expense.
Whose drops of blood paid the full price
That was required to make us gay
And fit for paradise.
Thou art a day of mirth:
And, where the week-days trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth.
Oh, let me take thee at the bound,
Leaping with thee from seven to seven,
Till that we both, being tossed from earth,
Fly hand in hand to heaven!
-HERBERT.