Poetic Beauty in Verse

Just found some poems that I am drawn to...
I like this first one because it talks about the meaningful, respectable, virtous qualities of an all-around good and wholesome person and how these things are that which creates a good character.

Character Of A Happy Life
by : Sir Henry Wotton (1568 - 1639), Henry Gibson

How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care
Of public fame or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are giv'n by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great.

Who God doth late and early pray
More of His grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend.

This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love this one because it talks about the restless nights we spend in contemplation with the Lord and personally, how those nights help us to remember our direction.

By Night When Others Soundly Slept
by : Anne Bradstreet (1612 - 1672), Henry Gibson

By night when others soundly slept
And hath at once both ease and Rest,
My waking eyes were open kept
And so to lie I found it best.

I sought him whom my Soul did Love,
With tears I sought him earnestly.
He bow'd his ear down from Above.
In vain I did not seek or cry.

My hungry Soul he fill'd with Good;
He in his Bottle put my tears,
My smarting wounds washt in his blood,
And banisht thence my Doubts and fears.

What to my Saviour shall I give
Who freely hath done this for me?
I'll serve him here whilst I shall live
And Loue him to Eternity.