Mount of Olives (I)
1.
SWEET, sacred hill! on whose fair brow
My Saviour sate, shall I allow
Language to love,
And idolize some shade, or grove,
Neglecting thee? such ill—plac’d wit,
Conceit, or call it what you please,
Is the brain’s fit,
And mere disease.
2.
Cotswold and Cooper’s both have met
With learn褠swains, and echo yet
Their pipes and wit ;
But thou sleep’st in a deep neglect,
Untouch’d by any ; and what need
The sheep bleat thee a silly lay,
That heard’st both reed
And sheepward play?
3.
Yet if poets mind thee well,
They shall find thou art their hill,
And fountain too.
Their Lord with thee had most to do ;
He wept once, walk’d whole nights on thee:
And from thence?His suff’rings ended?
Unto glory
Was attended.
4.
Being there, this spacious ball
Is but His narrow footstool all ;
And what we think
Unsearchable, now with one wink
He doth comprise ; but in this air
When He did stay to bear our ill
And sin, this hill
Was then His Chair.
