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[Page 309]
CHARITY.
A PARAPHRASE On the Thirteenth Chapter of the First Epistle TO THE CORINTHIANS.
1 Did sweeter Sounds adorn my flowing Tongue,
2 Than ever Man pronounc'd, or Angel sung:
3 Had I all Knowledge, Human and Divine,
4 That Thought can reach, or Science can define;
5 And had I Pow'r to give that Knowledge Birth,
6 In all the Speeches of the babling Earth:
[Page 310]7 Did Shadrach's Zeal my glowing Breast inspire,
8 To weary Tortures, and rejoice in Fire:
9 Or had I Faith like That which Israel saw,
10 When Moses gave them Miracles, and Law:
11 Yet, gracious Charity, indulgent Guest,
12 Were not Thy Pow'r exerted in my Breast;
13 Those Speeches would send up unheeded Pray'r:
14 That Scorn of Life would be but wild Despair:
15 A Tymbal's Sound were better than my Voice:
16 My Faith were Form: my Eloquence were Noise.
17 Charity, decent, modest, easy, kind,
18 Softens the high, and rears the abject Mind;
19 Knows with just Reins, and gentle Hand to guide,
20 Betwixt vile Shame, and arbitrary Pride.
21 Not soon provok'd, She easily forgives;
22 And much She suffers, as She much believes.
23 Soft Peace She brings where-ever She arrives:
24 She builds our Quiet, as She forms our Lives;
25 Lays the rough Paths of peevish Nature ev'n;
26 And opens in each Heart a little Heav'n.
27 Each other Gift, which GOD on Man bestows,
28 It's proper Bounds, and due Restriction knows;
29 To one fixt Purpose dedicates it's Pow'r;
30 And finishing it's Act, exists no more.
31 Thus, in Obedience to what Heav'n decrees,
32 Knowledge shall fail, and Prophecy shall cease:
33 But lasting Charity's more ample Sway,
34 Nor bound by Time, nor subject to Decay,
[Page 311]35 In happy Triumph shall for ever live,
36 And endless Good diffuse, and endless Praise receive.
37 As thro' the Artist's intervening Glass,
38 Our Eye observes the distant Planets pass;
39 A little we discover; but allow,
40 That more remains unseen, than Art can show:
41 So whilst our Mind it's Knowledge wou'd improve;
42 (It's feeble Eye intent on Things above)
43 High as We may, We lift our Reason up,
44 By Faith directed, and confirm'd by Hope:
45 Yet are We able only to survey
46 Dawnings of Beams, and Promises of Day.
47 Heav'n's fuller Effluence mocks our dazl'd Sight;
48 Too great it's Swiftness, and too strong it's Light.
49 But soon the mediate Clouds shall be dispell'd;
50 The Sun shall soon be Face to Face beheld,
51 In all His Robes, with all His Glory on,
52 Seated sublime on His Meridian Throne.
53 Then constant Faith, and holy Hope shall dye,
54 One lost in Certainty, and One in Joy:
55 Whilst Thou, more happy Pow'r, fair Charity,
56 Triumphant Sister, greatest of the Three,
57 Thy Office, and Thy Nature still the same,
58 Lasting thy Lamp, and unconsum'd thy Flame,
59 Shalt still survive —
60 Shalt stand before the Host of Heav'n confest,
61 For ever blessing, and for ever blest.
About this text
Title (in Source Edition): CHARITY. A PARAPHRASE On the Thirteenth Chapter of the First Epistle TO THE CORINTHIANS.
Author: Matthew Prior
Themes:
Genres:
paraphrase
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Source edition
Prior, Matthew, 1664-1721. Poems on Several Occasions [English poems only]. London: Printed for JACOB TONSON at Shakespear's-Head over against Katharine-Street in the Strand, and JOHN BARBER upon Lambeth-Hill. MDCCXVIII., 1718, pp. 309-311. [42],506,[6]p.: ill.; 2°. (ESTC T075639) (Page images digitized from a copy in the Bodleian Library [H 6.8 Art.].)
Editorial principles
Typography, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been cautiously modernized. The source of the text is given and all significant editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. This ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.
Other works by Matthew Prior
- ADRIANI MORIENTIS ad Animam Suam. IMITATED. ()
- ALMA: OR, THE PROGRESS OF THE MIND. In Three Cantos. ()
- Another Reasonable Affliction. ()
- ANOTHER [EPIGRAM]. ()
- ANOTHER [EPIGRAM]. ()
- ANOTHER [EPIGRAM]. ()
- ANOTHER [Reasonable Affliction]. ()
- ANOTHER [TRUE MAID]. ()
- Answer to CLOE Jealous, in the same Stile. The AUTHOR sick. ()
- A Better Answer. ()
- CANTATA. ()
- CARMEN SECULARE, For the Year 1700. TO THE KING. ()
- CELIA TO DAMON. ()
- THE CHAMELEON. ()
- CLOE HUNTING. ()
- CLOE JEALOUS. ()
- A Critical Moment. ()
- CUPID and GANYMEDE. ()
- CUPID Mistaken. ()
- Democritus and Heraclitus. ()
- THE DESPAIRING SHEPHERD. ()
- The DOVE. ()
- A Dutch Proverb. ()
- An English BALLAD, On the Taking of NAMUR By the King of Great Britain, 1695. ()
- AN ENGLISH PADLOCK. ()
- Engraven on a COLUMN In the Church of Halstead in Essex, The spire of which, burnt down by Lightning, was rebuilt at the Expense of Mr. Samuel Fiske, 1717. ()
- EPIGRAM. ()
- An EPIGRAM. Written to the Duke de Noailles. ()
- EPILOGUE TO LUCIUS. ()
- EPILOGUE TO PHÆDRA. ()
- AN EPISTLE TO FLEETWOOD SHEPHARD, Esq ()
- An EPISTLE, Desiring the Queen's Picture. Written at Paris, 1714. But left unfinish'd by the sudden News of Her Majesty's Death. ()
- An EPITAPH. ()
- Erle ROBERT's MICE. In Chaucer's Stile. ()
- An Extempore Invitation TO THE EARL of OXFORD, Lord High Treasurer. 1712. ()
- THE FIRST HYMN OF CALLIMACHUS. TO JUPITER. ()
- The FLIES. ()
- A FLOWER, Painted by SIMON VARELST. ()
- For my own Tomb-stone. ()
- FOR THE NEW YEAR: TO THE SUN. Intended To be Sung before Their Majesties on New-Years Day. 1693/4. (); HYMN to the SUN. Set by Dr. PURCEL, And Sung before their Majesties On New-Years-Day, 1694. ()
- FOR The Plan of a Fountain, On which is The Effigies of the Queen on a Triumphal Arch, The Figure of the Duke of Marlborough, beneath, and The Chief Rivers of the World round the whole Work. ()
- Forma Bonum Fragile. ()
- From the Greek. ()
- The Garland. ()
- GUALTERUS DANISTONUS. Ad Amicos. IMITATED. ()
- HANS CARVEL. ()
- HENRY and EMMA, A POEM, Upon the Model of The Nut-brown Maid. To CLOE. ()
- Her Right Name. ()
- Horace Lib. I. Epist. IX. Septimius, Claudi, nimirum intelligit unus, Quanti me facias: &c. Imitated. To the Right Honorable Mr. HARLEY. ()
- IN IMITATION OF ANACREON. ()
- In the same [Chaucer's] Style. ()
- In the same [Chaucer's] Style. ()
- THE LADLE. ()
- The Lady who offers her Looking-Glass to Venus. ()
- THE LADY's LOOKING-GLASS. ()
- A LETTER TO Monsieur Boileau Despreaux; Occasion'd by the VICTORY at BLENHEIM, 1704. ()
- Lisetta's Reply. ()
- LOVE Disarm'd. ()
- A LOVER's ANGER. ()
- MERCURY and CUPID. ()
- MERRY ANDREW. ()
- AN ODE, &c. ()
- AN ODE, Humbly Inscrib'd to the QUEEN. ON THE Glorious Success OF Her MAJESTY's Arms, 1706. Written in Imitation of Spencer's Style. ()
- An ODE. ()
- An ODE. ()
- An ODE. ()
- An ODE. Inscribed to the Memory of the Honble Col. George Villiers, Drowned in the River Piava, in the Country of Friuli. 1703. In Imitation of Horace, Ode 28. Lib. 1. ()
- On BEAUTY. A RIDDLE. ()
- On Exodus iii. 14. I am that I am. An ODE. Written in 1688, as an Exercise at St. John's College, Cambridge. ()
- On the Same Person. ()
- On the same Subject. ()
- On the Same. ()
- PALLAS and VENUS. AN EPIGRAM. ()
- A Passage in the MORIÆ ENCOMIUM of Erasmus Imitated. ()
- PAULO PURGANTI AND His WIFE: An Honest, but a Simple Pair. ()
- PHYLLIS's AGE. ()
- Picture of Seneca dying in a Bath. By Jordain. At the Right Honorable the Earl of Exeter's at Burleigh-House. ()
- A PINDARIQUE ON His Majesties Birth-Day. By Mr. PRIOR Sung before Their Majesties at WHITEHALL, The Fourth of November 1690. A Prophecy by APOLLO. ()
- PROLOGUE, SPOKEN AT COURT before the QUEEN, On Her Majesty's Birth-Day, 1704. ()
- Protogenes and Apelles. ()
- The Question, to Lisetta. ()
- Quid sit futurum Cras fuge quærere. ()
- A Reasonable Affliction. ()
- THE SECOND HYMN OF CALLIMACHUS. TO APOLLO. ()
- SEEING THE DUKE of ORMOND's PICTURE, AT Sir GODFREY KNELLER's. ()
- A SIMILE. ()
- SOLOMON ON THE VANITY OF THE WORLD. A POEM In THREE BOOKS. ()
- A SONG. ()
- A SONG. ()
- The THIEF AND THE CORDELIER, A BALLAD. ()
- To a LADY: She refusing to continue a Dispute with me, and leaving me in the Argument. An ODE. ()
- To a Person who wrote Ill, and spake Worse against Me. ()
- TO A Young Gentleman in Love. A TALE. ()
- To CLOE Weeping. ()
- TO Dr. SHERLOCK, ON HIS PRACTICAL DISCOURSE Concerning Death. ()
- To Mr. HARLEY. Wounded by Guiscard. 1711. ()
- TO Mr. HOWARD: An ODE. ()
- TO My LORD BUCKHURST, Very Young, Playing with a CAT. ()
- TO THE AUTHOR OF THE Foregoing PASTORAL. ()
- TO THE COUNTESS of DORSET. Written in her Milton. ()
- TO THE COUNTESS of EXETER, Playing on the Lute. ()
- To the Honorable CHARLES MONTAGUE, Esq ()
- TO THE KING, AN ODE, &c. (); An ODE. Presented to the KING, on his Majesty's Arrival in Holland, AFTER The QUEEN's Death. 1695. ()
- TO THE LADY DURSLEY On the same Subject. ()
- TO THE Lady Elizabeth Harley, Since Marchioness of Carmarthen, On a Column of Her Drawing. ()
- A TRUE MAID. ()
- VENUS Mistaken. ()
- VERSES Humbly presented to the KING At His Arrival in HOLLAND: After the DISCOVERY Of the late horrid CONSPIRACY Against His most Sacred Person. (); Presented to the KING, AT HIS ARRIVAL in HOLLAND, AFTER THE Discovery of the Conspiracy 1696. ()
- Written at Paris, 1700. In the Beginning of ROBE's GEOGRAPHY. ()
- Written in an OVID. ()
- Written in Montaigne's Essays, Given to the Duke of Shrewsbury in France, after the Peace, 1713. ()
- Written in the Beginning of MEZERAY's History of FRANCE. ()
- Written in the Nouveaux Interests des Princes de l'Europe. ()