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.

a

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 purgetb. 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.

THE INVITATION.

COME

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 wine

Doth define,
Naming you not to your good :
Weep what ye have drunk amiss,

And drink this,
Which before ye drink is blood.

Come

ye
hither all, whom pain

Doth arraign,
Bringing all your sins to sight :

: Taste and fear not: God is here

In this cheer,
And on sin doth cast the fright.

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.

my soul,

O what sweetness from the bowl

Fills Such as is, and makes divine ! Is some star (filed from the sphere)

Melted there, As we sugar melt in wine?