I am with Love or Praises crown'd,
'Tis such a shame, such vile, such base Repute,
'Tis better starve than eat such empty Fruit.
[APPENDIX]
The poems in the foregoing pages are derived (as I have already explained) from three separate MS. volumes, and from the author's prose volume, entitled "Christian Ethicks." The bulk of them (ending with "Goodness") are from the folio volume. The remainder—with the exception of the three which are from the volume of "Meditations and Devotions"—are from the prose volume entitled "Centuries of Meditations." I have printed all the poems which I have found in these various sources, with one exception. This is a poem which appears in the folio volume, but which is there crossed through as though marked for suppression.[M] Whether this mark of suppression was made by the author or by another person there are no means of judging; but as the poem in question is, as I think, somewhat below the level of its companions, I have thought it better to reserve it for the appendix than to print it between the poems "Thoughts" I. and II., where it occurs in the MS.
[BLISS]
I
All Bliss