Let foolish lovers, if they will love dung,

With Canvas, not with Arras, clothe their shame :
Let Folly speak in her own native tongue.
True beauty dwells on high: ours is a flame
But borrow'd thence to light us thither.
Beauty and beauteous words should go together.

Yet if you go, I pass not; take your way:
For, Thou art still my God, is all that ye
Perhaps with more embellishment can say.
Go, birds of spring: let winter have his fee;
Let a bleak paleness chalk the door,
So all within be livelier than before.

THE ROSE.

PRESS me not to take more pleasure
In this world of sugar'd lies,
And to use a larger measure
Than my strict, yet welcome size.

First, there is no pleasure here:
Colour'd griefs indeed there are,
Blushing woes, that look as clear,
As if they could beauty spare.

Or if such deceits there be,

Such delights I mean to say;
There are no such things to me,

Who have pass'd my right away.

But I will not much oppose
Unto what you now advise :
Only take this gentle Rose,
And therein my answer lies.

What is fairer than a rose?

What is sweeter? yet it purgeth.

Purgings enmity disclose,

Enmity forbearance urgeth.

If then all that worldlings prize
Be contracted to a rose;
Sweetly there indeed it lies,
But it biteth in the close.

So this flower doth judge and sentence
Worldly joys to be a scourge:
For they all produce repentance,
And repentance is a purge.

But I health, not physic choose :
Only though I you oppose,

Say that fairly I refuse,

For my answer is a rose.

DISCIPLINE.

THROW away thy rod,
Throw away thy wrath:
O my God,

Take the gentle path.

For my heart's desire
Unto thine is bent:
I aspire

To a full consent.

Not a word or look

I affect to own,

But by book,

And thy book alone.

Though I fail, I weep:
Though I halt in pace,
Yet I creep

To the throne of grace.

Then let wrath remove;
Love will do the deed:
For with love

Stony hearts will bleed.

Love is swift of foot;

Love's a man of war,

And can shoot,

And can hit from far.

Who can 'scape his bow?

That which wrought on thee, Brought thee low,

Needs must work on me.

Throw away thy rod;
Though man frailties hath,
Thou art God:

Throw away thy wrath.

COME

THE INVITATION.

ye hither all, whose taste
Is your waste;

Save your cost, and mend your fare.
God is here prepared and dress'd,
And the feast,

God, in whom all dainties are.

Come

ye hither all, whom joy
Doth destroy,

While ye graze without your bounds:

Here is joy that drowneth quite
Your delight,

As a flood the lower grounds.

Come ye hither all, whose love
Is your dove,

And exalts you to the sky:

Here is love, which, having breath Even in death,

After death can never die.

Lord, I have invited all,

And I shall

Still invite, still call to thee:

For it seems but just and right
In my sight,

Where is all, there all should be.

THE BANQUET.

WELCOME Sweet and sacred cheer,
Welcome dear;

With me, in me, live and dwell:
For thy neatness passeth sight,
Thy delight

Passeth tongue to taste or tell.

O what sweetness from the bowl

Fills my soul,

Such as is, and makes divine!

Is some star (fled from the sphere)

Melted there,

As we sugar melt in wine?