Farewell, dear flowers; sweetly your time ye spent, Fit while ye lived for smell or ornament, And after death for cures. I follow straight, without complaints or grief, Since if my scent be good, I care not if It be as short as yours. MISERY LORD, let the angels praise Thy name: Man is a foolish thing, a foolish thing; Folly and sin play all his game; His house still burns, and yet he still doth sing— Man is but grass, He knows it—‘Fill the glass.’ How canst Thou brook his foolishness? Why, he’ll not lose a cup of drink for Thee: Bid him but temper his excess, Not he: he knows where he can better be— As he will swear— Than to serve Thee in fear. What strange pollutions doth he wed, And make his own! as if none knew but he. No man shall beat into his head That Thou within his curtains drawn canst see: ‘They are of cloth Where never yet came moth.’ The best of men, turn but Thy hand For one poor minute, stumble at a pin; They would not have their actions scanned, Nor any sorrow tell them that they sin, Though it be small, And measure not the fall. They quarrel Thee, and would give over The bargain made to serve Thee; but Thy love Holds them unto it, and doth cover Their follies with the wings of Thy mild Dove, Not suffering those Who would, to be Thy foes. My God, man cannot praise Thy name: Thou art all brightness, perfect purity; The sun holds down his head for shame, Dead with eclipses, when we speak of Thee: How shall infection Presume on Thy perfection? As dirty hands foul all they touch, And those things most which are most pure and fine, So our clay-hearts, even when we crouch To sing Thy praises, make them less divine: Yet either this Or none Thy portion is. Man cannot serve Thee: let him go And serve the swine—there, that is his delight: He doth not like this virtue, no; Give him his dirt to wallow in all night: ‘These preachers make His head to shoot and ache.’ O foolish man! where are thine eyes? How hast thou lost them in a crowd of cares! Thou pull’st the rug, and wilt not rise, No, not to purchase the whole pack of stars: ‘There let them shine; Thou must go sleep or dine.’ The bird that sees a dainty bower Made in the tree, where she was wont to sit, Wonders and sings, but not His power Who made the arbour; this exceeds her wit. But man doth know The Spring whence all things flow: