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| O IGNORANT 1 poor man! what dost thou bear, | |
| Locked up within the casket of thy breast? | |
| What jewels and what riches hast thou here! | |
| What heavenly treasure in so weak a chest! | |
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| Think of her worth and think that God did mean | 5 |
| This worthy mind should worthy things embrace: | |
| Blot not her beauties with thy thoughts unclean, | |
| Nor her dishonour with thy passion base. | |
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| Kill not her quickening power with surfeitings; | |
| Mar not her sense with sensuality; | 10 |
| Cast not her serious wit on idle things; | |
| Make not her free-will slave to vanity. | |
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| And when thou think’st of her eternity, | |
| Think not that death against her nature is; | |
| Think it a birth; and when thou go’st to die, | 15 |
| Sing like a swan, as if thou went’st to bliss. | |
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| And thou my soul, which turn’st thy curious eye | |
| To view the beams of thine own form divine, | |
| Know, that thou can’st know nothing perfectly, | |
| While thou are clouded with this flesh of mine. | 20 |
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| Cast down thyself and only strive to raise | |
| The glory of thy Maker’s sacred name: | |
| Use all thy powers that blessed Power to praise, | |
| Which gives thee power to be and use the same. | |
