The Chapter-house: Episcopacy V

Welcome their hate ; the good which they dispense
Poisons the proud and pains the lowly soul ;
Nor can the spells which this rude world control,
And worldly arts, and wit, and eloquence,
One spirit rescue from the toils of sense,
Or bring one rescued to the eternal goal.
Thy robe must be thy Master's humble stole,
Watching and fast, and fast and watching, thence
Long midnight meditations, grave and deep,
Rous'd from earth's palsying hand of drowsy sleep
By Persecution's wrath and Satan's hate,
And wafting prayers of saints that on thee wait,
Some Herbert hidden in his rural nook,
Or Kempis kneeling o'er a cloistral book,
And chief of spells, the halo yet unspent,
The latest breath of Jesus ere he went.