I will seek a better mind;
Change, correct, and leave behind
What I did with purpose blind:
From vice sever, with endeavour
Yield my soul to serious things,
Seek the joy that virtue brings.
The third would find a more appropriate place in a hymn-book than in a collection of Carmina Vagorum. It is, however, written in a lyrical style so closely allied to the secular songs of the Carmina Burana (where it occurs) that I have thought it well to quote its grimly medieval condemnation of human life.
VANITAS VANITATUM.
No. 58.
This vile world
In madness hurled
Offers but false shadows;
Joys that wane
And waste like vain
Lilies of the meadows.
Worldly wealth,
Youth, strength, and health,
Cramp the soul's endeavour;
Drive it down
In hell to drown,
Hell that burns for ever.
What we see,
And what let be,
While on earth we tarry,
We shall cast
Like leaves at last
Which the sere oaks carry.
Carnal life,
Man's law of strife,
Hath but brief existence;
Passes, fades,
Like wavering shades
Without real subsistence.
Therefore bind,
Tread down and grind
Fleshly lusts that blight us;
So heaven's bliss
'Mid saints that kiss
Shall for aye delight us.