To The Soul
John Collop
Dull soul aspire;
Thou art not earth. Mount higher!
Heaven gave the spark; to it return the fire.
Let sin ne'er quench
Thy high-flamed spirit hence;
To earth the heat, to heaven the flame dispense!
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Turn, turn, each part a voice;
While to the heart-strings' tune ye all rejoice.
The house is swept
Which sin so long foul kept;
The penny's found for which the loser wept.
And, purged with tears,
God's image reappears.
The penny truly shows whose stamp it bears.
The sheep long lost,
Sin's wilderness oft crossed,
Is found, regained, returned. Spare, spare no cost!
'Tis heaven's own suit;
Hark how it woos you to't.
When angels needs must speak, shall man be mute?
.
4 comments:
Hi Doug!
This was like showing the soul..its way to heaven :-)
"The sheep long lost,
Sin's wilderness oft crossed,
Is found, regained, returned. Spare, spare no cost!" --
there lies man's (i mean woman's too) role, i feel
Good one, John..
and thank you Doug for offering it :-)
wishes!
devika
This poem is a perfect understanding of Christ's words "I am in this world but not of this world". Thank you for sharing this Doug.
Hello,
I loved The Riverworld Series and always remembered the quote from John Collop...is he a fictitional person?
Jennie
Hi Jennie,
John Collop was a real guy who lived in the mid 17th century. He was only a poet secondarily, however. Primarily he was a medical doctor and he would probably be surprised that anyone at all remembers him these days.
Many of his poems were medical related (boring); some are crude. A few are simply mean jokes. Around his time it was a fad to write flamboyant poems in praise of women one admired. For instance Thomas Campion's poem that starts out:
"There is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies blow . . ."
Collop got tired of these gushy sweet poems and wrote a series praising the loveliness of women missing half their teeth and going bald and what-not.
But he also wrote a few prayer style poems which I think are brilliant, and some that railed against one portion or another of the Church, which the Church thought heretical.
That's more of an answer than you probably wanted. :)
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