Bliss
I
All Bliss
Consists in this,
To do as Adam did,
And not to know those superficial Toys
Which in the Garden once were hid.
Those little new-invented things,
Cups, saddles, crowns are childish joys,
So ribbands are and rings,
Which all our happiness destroys.
II
Nor God
In His abode,
Nor Saints, nor little boys,
Nor Angels made them; only foolish men,
Grown mad with custom, on those toys,
Which more increase their wants, do dote,
And when they older are do then
Those baubles chiefly note
With greedier eyes, more boys tho’ men.
To enable the reader to judge whether my hypothesis that the author of “A Serious and Patheticall Contemplation of the Mercies of God” is also the author of the other poems contained in the present volume, is well or ill-founded, I will now print the three poems which appear in the above-mentioned work. They are as follows: