My God, man cannot praise Thy name:
Thou art all brightness, perfect purity;
The sun holds down his head for shame,
Dead with eclipses, when we speak of Thee:
How shall infection
Presume on Thy perfection?
As dirty hands foul all they touch,
And those things most which are most pure and fine,
So our clay-hearts, even when we crouch
To sing Thy praises, make them less divine:
Yet either this
Or none Thy portion is.
Man cannot serve Thee: let him go
And serve the swine—there, that is his delight:
He doth not like this virtue, no;
Give him his dirt to wallow in all night:
‘These preachers make
His head to shoot and ache.’
O foolish man! where are thine eyes?
How hast thou lost them in a crowd of cares!
Thou pull’st the rug, and wilt not rise,
No, not to purchase the whole pack of stars:
‘There let them shine;
Thou must go sleep or dine.’
The bird that sees a dainty bower
Made in the tree, where she was wont to sit,
Wonders and sings, but not His power
Who made the arbour; this exceeds her wit.
But man doth know
The Spring whence all things flow:
And yet, as though he knew it not,
His knowledge winks, and lets his humours reign;
They make his life a constant blot,
And all the blood of God to run in vain.
Ah, wretch! what verse
Can thy strange ways rehearse?
Indeed, at first man was a treasure,
A box of jewels, shop of rarities,
A ring whose posy was ‘my pleasure’;
He was a garden in a Paradise;
Glory and grace
Did crown his heart and face.
But sin hath fooled him; now he is
A lump of flesh, without a foot or wing
To raise him to a glimpse of bliss;
A sick-tossed vessel, dashing on each thing,
Nay, his own shelf:
My God, I mean myself.