But I will not much oppose

Unto what you now advise : Only take this gentle rose,

And therein my answer lies.

What is fairer than a rose ?

What is sweeter? yet it purgeth. Purgings enmity disclose,

Enmity forbearance urgeth.

If then all that worldlings prize
Be contracted to a rose,
Sweetly there indeed it lies,
But it biteth in the close.

So this flower doth judge and sentence
Worldly joys to be a scourge;
For they all produce repentance,
And repentance is a purge.

But I health, not physic, choose:
Only though I you oppose,

Say that fairly I refuse,

THE INVITATION.

COME ye hither all, whose taste Is your waste;

Save your cost, and mend your fare. God is here prepared and drest, And the feast,

God, in whom all dainties are.

Come ye hither all, whom wine
Doth define,

Naming you not to your good:
Weep what ye have drunk amiss,
And drink this,

Which before ye drink is blood.

Come ye hither all, whom pain

Doth arraign,

Bringing all your sins to sight:
Taste and fear not: God is here
In this cheer,

And on sin doth cast the fright.

Come ye hither all, whom joy

Doth destroy,

While ye graze without your bounds:

Here is joy that drowneth quite

Your delight,

As a flood the lower grounds.

Come ye hither all, whose love

Is your dove,

And exalts you to the sky:

Here is love, which, having breath

E'en in death,

After death can never die.

Lord, I have invited all,

And I shall

Still invite, still call to Thee:

For it seems but just and right

In my sight,

Where is all, there all should be.

THE BANQUET.

WELCOME, sweet and sacred cheer,

Welcome dear!

With me, in me, live and dwell;
For Thy neatness* passeth sight,
Thy delight

Passeth tongue to taste or tell.

O what sweetness from the bowl

Fills my soul,

Such as is, and makes divine !

Is some star (fled from the sphere)

Melted there,

As we sugar melt in wine?

Or hath sweetness in the bread

Made a head

* Purity.

To subdue the smell of sin,

Flowers, and gums, and powders giving All their living,

Lest the enemy should win?

Doubtless neither star nor flower
Hath the power

Such a sweetness to impart :

Only God, who gives perfumes,
Flesh assumes,

And with it perfumes my heart.

But as Pomanders and wood

Still are good,

Yet being bruised are better scented; God, to show how far His love

Could improve,

Here, as broken, is presented.

When I had forgot my birth,

And on earth

In delights of earth was drowned,
God took blood, and needs would be
Spilt with me,

And so found me on the ground.

Having raised me to look up,

In a cup

Sweetly He doth meet my taste.
But I still being low and short,
Far from court,

Wine becomes a wing at last.