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| O WEARISOME condition of humanity! | |
| Born under one law, to another bound; | |
| Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity; | |
| Created sick, commanded to be sound: | |
| —What meaneth Nature by these diverse laws? | 5 |
| Passion and Reason self-division cause. | |
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| Is it the mark or majesty of power | |
| To make offences that it may forgive? | |
| Nature herself doth her own self deflower, | |
| To hate those errors she herself doth give. | 10 |
| But how should Man think that he may not do, | |
| If Nature did not fail and punish too? | |
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| Tyrant to others, to herself unjust, | |
| Only commands things difficult and hard. | |
| Forbids us all things which it knows we lust; | 15 |
| Makes easy pains, impossible reward. | |
| If Nature did not take delight in blood, | |
| She would have made more easy ways to good. | |
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| We that are bound by vows, and by promotion, | |
| With pomp of holy sacrifice and rites, | 20 |
| To lead belief in good and ’stil devotion. | |
| To preach of heaven’s wonders and delights; | |
| Yet when each of us in his own heart looks, | |
| He finds the God there far unlike his books. | |
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