O day most calm, most bright,

The fruit of this, the next world's bud,

The indorsement of supreme delight,

Writ by a Friend, and with His blood;

The couch of Time, Care's balm and bay;

The week were dark but for thy light;

Thy torch doth show the way.

Sundays the pillars are,

On which Heaven's Palace archéd lies:

The other days fill up the spare

And hollow room with vanities:

They are the fruitful beds and borders

In GOD's rich garden: that [55] is bare

Which parts their ranks and orders.

The Sundays of man's life,

Threaded together on Time's string,

Make bracelets to adorn the Wife

Of the eternal glorious King:

On Sunday Heaven's gate stands ope;

Blessings are plentiful and rife,

More plentiful than hope.

Thou art a day of mirth;

And where the week-days trail on ground,

Thy flight is higher, as thy birth:

O let me take thee at the bound,

Leaping with thee from seven to seven,

Till that we both, being toss'd from Earth,

Fly hand in hand to Heaven!

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Footnotes:

[55] that is bare, the week-days