Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.
A Dialogue
George Herbert (15931633)
Man.
SWEETEST Saviour, if my soul | Were but worth the having, | Quickly should I then control | Any thought of waving. | But when all my care and pains | Cannot give the name of gains | To Thy wretch so full of stains, | What delight or hope remains? Saviour. | What, child, is the balance thine, | Thine the poise and measure? | If I say, ‘Thou shalt be Mine,’ | Finger not my treasure. | What the gains in having thee | Do amount to, only He | Who for man was sold can see; | That transferred th’ accounts to Me. Man. | But as I can see no merit | Leading to this favour, | So the way to fit me for it | Is beyond my savour! | As the reason, then, is Thine, | So the way is none of mine; | I disclaim the whole design; | Sin disclaims and I resign. Saviour. | That is all: if that I could | Get without repining; | And My clay, My creature, would | Follow My resigning; | That as I did freely part | With My glory and desert, | Left all joys to feel all smart— Man. | Ah, no more! Thou break’st my heart!
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