La Carona

7. Ascension

Salute the last and everlasting day,

Joy at the uprising of this sun, and son,

Ye whose just tears, or tribulation

Have purely washed, or burnt your drossy clay;

Behold the Highest, parting hence away,

Lightens the dark clouds, which he treads upon,

Nor doth he by ascending, show alone,

But first he, and he first enters the way.

O strong ram, which has battered heaven for me,

Mild lamb, which with thy blood, hast marked the path;

Bright torch, which shin’st, that I the way may see,

Oh, with thine own blood quench thine own just wrath,

And if thy holy Spirit, my Muse did raise,

Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise.

Selection take from: John Donne: A Critical Edition of the Major Works,  edited by John Carey; Oxford: OUP, 1990