That many heliotropians there be,

Philosophers unanimously agree;

But that a plant should in the center grow,

Few naturalists to find the truth will go

So far below the caverns of the dead

To find this simple, simp’ring in her bed,

Which sends forth branches through the sea or earth,

And, as the sun doth rise, begins her birth;

Then, as he higher doth in splendor go,

Even so this azure flower doth taller grow,

And when he mounts to his meridian height,

Then many cubits she doth stand upright

Above the earth, when to the western tracts

Hesperion goes, her stature she contracts;

Then, when he hurries down th’Olympic hill

Lower and lower, this brave flower grows still;

But when in Thetis’s lap he lays his head,

She sadly sinks into her earthly bed.

When to th’antipodes he doth appear,

She follows him to th’other hemisphere,

The earth or sea being everywhere above her,

She breaks through all to meet her radiant lover;

Even so those souls which are to God united,

Though in this vale of tears they be benighted,

Yet still a blessed influence from above

Sweetly inclines them to a constant love:

Though tyrants in their innocent bloods do wallow;

Though they the martyrs in their deaths do follow.

Wheels, gibbets, precipices, crosses, flame:

They’ll break through all to magnify His name.

’Tis neither power nor principality,

Dear God, can separate my soul from thee;

Nor all the powers of Heaven, Hell, or Earth

Can keep my soul from whence she had her birth;

Though death calcine my flesh and bones to dust,

In my first principles, I’ll in Thee trust.

Nay, even my dust dispersed shall rest in hope

To meet my Savior in a horoscope

Infinitely than this, our orb, more bright–

Not interwoven, as now, with death and night;

Then, though I sadly here sigh out my story,

Yet am I sure to rise again to glory