Mel Heliconium :: :: University of Virginia Library

Alas my soul, how men are vext
That fix their love on gilded dung,
Which when they want they are perplext,
And when they have it they are stung.
Great riches wounds
With cares mans heart;
As wealth abounds,
So doth their smart.

Doth not the love of earthly things,
Devest men of their richest robe,
And then they fly away with wings,
And leaves them naked on this Globe:
Besides all that,
They blinde men eyes,
That they cannot
Behold the skies.

And doth not earthly things besides,
With burning torches men torment;
And with sharp arrows wound their sides,
So that our dayes in pain are spent:
Then why should I
Affect these things,
Which misery
And sorrow brings.

This love makes men like foolish boyes,
Who place their chief felicity
In bits of glasses, shels, and toyes,
Or in a painted Butter-flye:

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So riches are
(Which we, alas,
Scrape with such care)
But bits of glasse.

Lord let me see thy beauty, which
Doth onely true contentment bring;
And so in thee I shall be rich:
Oh if I had swift Cupids wing,
Then would I flee
By faith above,
And fix on thee
My heart and love.

That Christ is the true God of Love.

Christ is the onely God of Loves,
Who did his secrets all disclose;
Whose wings are swifter then the Doves,
Who onely hath deserv'd the Rose:
Thou onely art
That potent King,
Both of my heart
And every thing.

Both Principalities and Powers,
And all that's in the sea and land,
Men, Lyons, Dolphins, Birds and Flowers,
Are all now under thy command:
Thy Word's the torch
Thy Word's the dart
Which both doth scorch
And wound my heart.

It was not Cupid (sure) that spoil'd
The gods of all their vestiments;

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But thou art he that has them foil'd,
And stript them of their ornaments:
Then thou alone
Deserves to be
Set in the Throne
Of Majesty.

Sometime a Crown of Thorns did sit
Upon that sacred head of thine;
But sure a Rose-crown was more fit
For thee, and Thorns for this of mine:
O God, what love
Was this in thee,
That should thee move
To dye for me!

Thy youth is alwayes green and fresh,
Thy lasting yeers, Lord, cannot fail;
O look not on my sinfull flesh,
But mask thy eyes with mercy's vail.
O Lord renew
In me thy love,
And from thy view
My sins remove.