MEN talke of loue that know not what it is; | |
| For could we know what loue may be indeede, | |
| We would not haue our mindes so led amisse | |
| With idle toyes that wanton humours feede: | |
| But in the rules of higher reason read | 5 |
| What loue may be so from the world conceal’d, | |
| Yet all too plainely to the world reveal’d. | |
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| It is too cleare a brightnesse for man’s eye; | |
| Too high a wisedome for his wits to finde; | |
| Too deepe a secret for his sense to trie; | 10 |
| And all too heauenly for his earthly minde: | |
| It is a grace of such a glorious kinde | |
| As giues the soule a secret power to know it, | |
| But giues no heart nor spirit power to show it. | |
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| It is of heauen and earth the highest beautie; | 15 |
| The powerfull hand of heauen’s and earth’s creation; | |
| The due commander of all spirits’ duetie; | |
| The Deitie of angels’ adoration; | |
| The glorious substance of the soule’s saluation: | |
| The light of truthe that all perfection trieth, | 20 |
| And life that giues the life that neuer dieth. | |
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| It is the height of God, and hate of ill, | |
| Tryumph of trueth, and falshood’s ouerthrow; | |
| The onely worker of the highest will, | |
| And onely knowledge that doeth knowledge know, | 25 |
| And onely ground where it doeth onely growe: | |
| It is in summe the substance of all blisse, | |
| Without whose blessing all thing nothing is. | |
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| But in itselfe itselfe it all containeth, | |
| And from itselfe but of itselfe it giueth; | 30 |
| It nothing loseth, and it nothing gaineth, | |
| But in the glorie of itselfe it liueth, | |
| A ioy which soone away all sorrow driueth: | |
| The prooued truth of all perfections’ storie, | |
| Our God incomprehensible in glorie. | 35 |
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| Thus is it not a riddle to be read, | |
| And yet a secret to be found in reading; | |
| But when the heart ioynes issue with the head, | |
| In settled faith to seeke the Spirit’s feeding, | |
| While in the woundes, that euer fresh are bleeding | 40 |
| In Christ his side, the faithfull soule may see | |
| In perfect life what perfect loue may be. | |
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| No further seeke then for to finde out loue | |
| Than in the lines of euerliuing blisse, | |
| Where carefull conscience may in comfort prooue | 45 |
| In sacred loue that heauenly substance is, | |
| That neuer guides the gracious minde amisse; | |
| But makes the soule to finde in life’s behoue | |
| What thing indeed, and nothing else, is loue. | |
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| Then make no doubt if either good or bad, | 50 |
| If this or that, in substance or in thought, | |
| And by what meanes it may be sought or had, | |
| Whereof it is, and how it may be wrought: | |
| Let it suffice the word of truth hath taught: | |
| It is the grace but of the liuing God, | 55 |
| Before beginning that with him abode. | |
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| It brought forth power to worke, wisdome to will, | |
| Justice to iudge, mercie to execute, | |
| Vertue to plant, charitie to fill, | |
| Time to direct, truths falshood to confute, | 60 |
| Pitie to pleade in penitence’s suite, | |
| Patience to bide, and peace to giue thee rest, | |
| To prooue how loue doth make the spirit blest. | |
| |
| And this is God, and this same God is loue, | |
| For God and loue in Charitie are one: | 65 |
| And Charitie is that same God aboue, | |
| In whome doth liue that onely loue alone, | |
| Without whose grace true loue is neuer none: | |
| Then seeke no further what is loue to finde, | |
| But onely carie God within thy minde. | 70 |
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| Leaue in the world to looke for any loue; | |
| For on the earth is little faith to finde, | |
| And faithlesse hearts in too much trueth doe proue | |
| Loue doth not liue where care is so vnkind: | |
| Men in their natures differ from their kinde: | 75 |
| Sinne fils the world so full of secret euils, | |
| Men should be gods to men, but they are deuils. | |
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| Christ lou’d to death, yet loue did neuer die; | |
| For loue by death did worke the death of death! | |
| Oh liuing loue! oh heauenly mysterie! | 80 |
| Too great a glory for this world beneathe, | |
| The blessed breathing of the highest breathe. | |
| Blest are they borne that onely finde in thee, | |
| Oh blessed God, what blessed loue may be! * * * * * * | |
| Amidde the skie there is one onely sunne; | 85 |
| Amidde the ayre one onely phœnix flies; | |
| One onely time by which all houres doe runne; | |
| One onely life that liues and neuer dies; | |
| One onely eye that euerie thought descries; | |
| One onely light that shewes our onely loue; | 90 |
| One onely loue; and that is God aboue. | |
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| To say yet further what this loue may be, | |
| It is a holy heauenly excellence; | |
| Aboue the power of any eye to see, | |
| Or wit to finde by world’s experience: | 95 |
| It is the spirit of life’s quintessence; | |
| Whose rare effects may partly be perceiued, | |
| But to the full can neuer be conceiued. | |
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| It is repentance’ sweet restoratiue; | |
| The Rosa solis the sicke soule reuiueth; | 100 |
| It is the faithfull heart’s preseruatiue; | |
| It is the hauen where happie grace arriueth; | |
| It is the life that death of power depriueth: | |
| It is, in summe, the euerlasting blisse, | |
| Where God alone in all his glorie is. | 105 |
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| It is a ioy that neuer comes in iest; | |
| A comfort that doth cast off euery care; | |
| A rule wherein the life of life doth rest, | |
| Where all the faithfull finde their happie fare; | |
| A good that doth but onely God declare; | 110 |
| A line that his right hand doth draw so euen, | |
| As leads the soule the hyway unto heauen. | |
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| If then henceforth you aske what thing is loue, | |
| In light, in life, in grace, in God, goe looke it; | |
| And if in these you doe not truely prooue | 115 |
| How in your hearts you may for euer booke it, | |
| Vnhappy thinke yourselues you haue mistook it: | |
| For why? the life that death hath ouer-trod | |
| Is but the loue of Grace, and that is God. | |
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