What Grace and Truth do offer liberally.
Bounty said, Come. I heard it, and believed;
None ever there complain'd but was relieved.
Hope waiting upon Faith said instantly,
That thenceforth I should live, Corruption die.

And so she died, I live. But yet, alas!
We are not parted: She is where she was,

Cleaves fast unto me still, looks through mine eyes, Speaks in my tongue, and museth in my mind, Works with mine hands: her body's left behind, Although her soul be gone. My miseries All flow from hence; from hence my woes arise.

I loathe myself, because I leave her not;
Yet cannot leave her. No, she is my lot,

Now being dead, that living was my choice;
And still, though dead, she both conceives and bears,
Many faults daily, and as many fears:

All which for vengeance call with a loud voice, And drown my comforts with their deadly noise.

Dead bodies kept unburied quickly stink
And putrefy. How can I then but think
Corruption noisome, even mortified?
Though such she were before, yet such to me
She seemed not. Kind fools can never see,
Or will not credit, until they have tried,
That friendly looks oft false intents do hide.

But mortified Corruption lies unmask'd,
Blabs her own secret filthiness unask'd,

To all that understand her. That do none

In whom she lives embraced with delight:
She first of all deprives them of their sight;

Then dote they on her, as upon their own,
And she to them seems beautiful alone.

But woe is me! One part of me is dead;
The other lives: Yet that which lives is led,
Or rather carried captive unto sin,

By the dead part. I am a living grave,
And a dead body I within me have.

The worse part of the better, oft doth win:
And, when I should have ended, I begin.

The scent would choke me, were it not that grace Sometimes vouchsafeth to perfume the place

With odours of the Spirit, which do ease me,
And counterpoise Corruption. Blessed Spirit,
Although eternal torments be my merit,

And of myself Transgressions only please me,
Add grace enough being revived to raise me.

Challenge thine own. Let not intruders hold
Against thy right, what to my wrong I sold.
Having no state myself, but tenancy,
And tenancy at will, what could I grant
That is not voided, if thou say, Avaunt!

O speak the word, and make these inmates flee :
Or, which is one, take me to dwell with thee.

THE CURB.

PEACE, rebel thought: dost thou not know thy King, My God, is here?

Cannot his presence, if no other thing,

Make thee forbear?

Or were he absent, all the standers by
Are but his spies :

And well he knows, if thou shouldst it deny,
Thy words were lies.

If others will not, yet I must, and will,
Myself complain.

My God, even now a base rebellious thought
Began to move,

And subt❜ly twining with me would have wrought
Me from thy love:

Fain he would have me to believe, that Sin
And thou might both

Take up my heart together for your Inn,
And neither loathe

The other's company: a while sit still,
And part again.

Tell me, my God, how this may be redrest:
The fault is great,

And I the guilty party have confest,

I must be beat.

And I refuse not punishment for this,

So I

may

Though to my pain;

learn to do no more amiss,

Nor sin again:

Correct me, if thou wilt; but teach me then, What I shall do.

Lord of my life, methinks I heard thee say,
That labour's eased:

The fault, that is confess'd, is done away,
And thou art pleased.

How can I sin again, and wrong thee then,
That dost relent,

And cease thine anger straight, as soon as men
Do but repent?

No, rebel thought; for if thou move again,
I'll tell that too.

WHITHER, oh! whither is my Lord departed? What can my Love, that is so tender-hearted, Forsake the soul, which once he thorough darted, As if it never smarted?

No, sure my Love is here, if I could find him : He that fills all can leave no place behind him. But oh! my senses are too weak to wind him : Or else I do not mind him.