Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex

“ Sense’s confounded, soul’s chief overthrow,
Grafted by men, not by the grafter given;
Consuming canker, wasting soul’s chief treasure,
Only to gain a little trifling pleasure.
Happy were man if sin had never been,
Thrice happy now, if sin he would forsake,
But happier far, if for his wicked sin
He would repent, and hearty sorrow make;
Leaving this dross and fleshy delectation,
To gain in heaven a lasting habitation.
There is the place wherein all sorrows die,
Where joy exceeds all joy that ever were ”

“ And by his tears obtained grace at last;
But wretched I have fallen of mine accord,
Ten thousand times against the living Lord.
Yet cannot strain one true repentant tear,
To gain the bliss from which my soul is banished;
My flinty heart such sorrowing doth forebear,
And from my sense all true remorse is vanished;
For heart and sense are cloyed with dregs of sin,
And there’s no place for Grace to enter in.
No place (dear Lord) unless thy goodness please
To pity him that worst deserves of any,
And in thy tender mercy showed to many ”

“ As nought will wash but tears of inward dole.
Oh that the learned poets of this time
(who in a love-sick line so well indite)
Would not consume good wit in hateful rhyme,
But would with care some better subject write:
For if their music please in earthly things,
Well would it sound if strained with heavenly strings.
But woe it is to see fond worldlings use,
Who most delight in things that vainest be;
And without fear work virtue’s foul abuse,
Scorning soul’s rest and all true piety,
As if they made account never to part
From this frail life, the pilgrimage of smart. ”

“ When practiced sin hath deeply taken root,
The way to penance due is hard to find,
Repentance held a thing of little boot;
For contrite tears, soul’s health, and angels’
Most men account a mere fantastic toy.
Ill-working use, devourer of all grace,
The fretting moth that wasteth soul’s chief bliss,
The sly close thief that lurks in every place,
Filching by piece-meal, till the whole be his ”

“ Without restraint, controlment or respect.
O why should man, that bears the stamp of heaven,
So much abase heaven’s holy will and pleasure?
O, why was sense and reason to him given,
That in his sin cannot contain a measure?
He knows he must account for every sin,
And yet committeth sins that countless been.
This to peruse (dear God) doth kill my soul,
But that thy mercy quickeneth it again;
O hear me, Lord, in bitterness of dole,
That of my sins do prostrate here complain;
And at thy feet with Mary, knock for grace,
Though wanting Marie’s tears to wet my face. ”

“ Grief, despair, hate, and jars that never cease.
The worm of conscience still attendeth on us,
Telling each hour, each instant we shall die,
And that our sins cannot be parted from us,
But where we are, thither they likewise fly ”