Quips And Cranks And Wanton Wiles, Nods

But That From Us Aught Should Ascend To Heav'n So Prevalent As To Concern The Mind Of God, High-bless'd, Or To Incline His Will, Hard To Belief May Seem; Yet This Will Prayer.

Alas! What Boots It With Uncessant Care To Tend The Homely Slighted Shepherd's Trade, And Strictly Meditate The Thankless Muse; Were It Not Better Done As Others Use, To Sport With Amaryllis In The Shade, Or With The Tangles Of Neaera's Hair? Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise (that Last Infirmity Of Noble Mind) To Scorn Delights, And Live Laborious Days; But The Fair Guerdon When We Hope To Find, And Think To Burst Out Into Sudden Blaze, Comes The Blind Fury With Th'abhorred Shears, And Slits The Thin-spun Life.

And Now Without Redemption All Mankind Must Have Been Lost, Adjudged To Death And Hell By Doom Severe.

And If By Prayer Incessant I Could Hope To Change The Will Of Him Who All Things Can, I Would Not Cease To Weary Him With My Assiduous Cries.

O Loss Of Sight, Of Thee I Most Complain! Blind Among Enemies, O Worse Than Chains, Dungeon, Or Beggary, Or Decrepit Age!