My feast is done, my soul would be at ease,
My grace is said, O death! come take away.

I live, but such a life as ever dies;

I die, but such a death as never ends;
My death to end my dying life denies,
And life my loving death no whit amends.

Thus still I die, yet still I do remain;
My living death by dying life is fed;
Grace more than nature keeps my heart alive,
Whose idle hopes and vain desires are dead.

Not where I breathe, but where I love, I live;
Not where I love, but where I am, I die;
The life I wish must future glory give,

The death I feel in present dangers lie.

WHAT JOY TO LIVE.

WAGE no war, yet peace I none enjoy;
I hope, I fear, I fry in freezing cold;
I mount in mirth, still prostrate in

annoy;

If all the world embrace yet nothing hold. All wealth is want where chiefest wishes fail, Yea life is loathed where love may not prevail.

For that I love I long, but that I lack;

That other love I loathe, and that I have; All worldly freights to me are deadly wrack, Men present hap, I future hopes do crave: They, loving where they live, long life require, To live where best I love, I death desire.

Here loan is lent for love of filthy gain;

Most friends befriend themselves with friendship's

show;

Here plenty peril, want doth breed disdain ;

Cares common are, joys faulty, short and few;
Here honour envied, meanness is despised;
Sin deemed solace, virtue little prized.

Here beauty is a bait that, swallow'd, chokes,

A treasure sought still in the owner's harms; A light that eyes to murdering sights provokes, A grace that souls enchants with mortal charms; A luring gain to Cupid's fiery slights,

A baleful bliss that damns where it delights.

Oh! who would live so many deaths to try?

Where will doth wish that wisdom doth reprove, Where nature craves that grace must needs deny,

Where sense doth like that reason cannot love, Where best in show in final proof is worst,

Where pleasures upshot is to die accurst?

LIFE'S DEATH, LOVE'S LIFE.

HO lives in love, loves least to live,
And long delays doth rue,

If Him he love by whom he lives,
To whom all love is due.

Who for our love did choose to live,

And was content to die;

Who loved our love more than His life,
And love with life did buy.

Let us in life, yea with our life,
Requite His living love;

For best we live when best we love,
If love our life remove.

Where love is hot life hateful is,

Their grounds do not agree;

Love where it loves, life where it lives,
Desireth most to be.

And sith love is not where it lives,

Nor liveth where it loves,

Love hateth life that holds it back,

And death it best approves.

For seldom is He won in life

Whom love doth most desire; If won in love, yet not enjoy'd, Till mortal life expire.

Life out of earth hath no abode,
In earth love hath no place;
Love settled hath her joys in heaven,
In earth life all her grace.

Mourn, therefore, no true lover's death,

Life only him

annoys;

And when he taketh leave of life,

Then love begins his joys.