O WHAT a cunning guest Is this same grief! within my heart I made Closets, and in them many a chest; And, like a master in my trade, In those chests, boxes; in each box, a till: Yet grief knows all, and enters when he will. No scrue, no piercer can Into a piece of timber worke and winde, As Gods afflictions into man, When he a torture hath design'd. They are too subtill for the subt'llest hearts; And fall, like rheumes, upon the tendrest parts. We are the earth; and they, Like moles within us, heave, and cast about: And till they foot and clutch their prey, They never cool, much lesse give out. No smith can make such locks, but they have keyes; Closets are halls to them; and hearts, high-wayes. Onely an open breast Doth shut them out, so that they cannot enter; Or, if they enter, cannot rest, But quickly seek some new adventure. Smooth open hearts no fastning have; but fiction Doth give a hold and handle to affliction. Wherefore my faults and sinnes, Lord, I acknowledge; take thy plagues away: For, since confession pardon winnes, I challenge here the brightest day, The clearest diamond: let them do their best, They shall be thick and cloudie to my breast. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE by SIDNEY LANIER WAR AND WASHINGTON by JONATHAN MITCHELL SEWALL SPORTSMEN IN PARADISE by T. P. CAMERON WILSON PANEGYRIC by ABU BAKR MUHUMMAD A PRELUDE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH LOVE AND TIME by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD |