Love not the world!
What is there here to love?
That which is loveable is not of earth—
Fix thou thine eyes above.
The face of time
Has never come to stay;
The beauty of this fascinating world
Endureth but a day.
Of things below
The best is but a lie;
The blossoms of the spring, and childhood’s buds
Must fade, and fall, and die.
The beautiful,
All bright, and fresh, and gay,
Must pass, like sun-gleam through a broken
cloud,
Across thy untried way.
Be not deceived!
Through all this earthly air
A hellish poison pours its deadliness:
The plague of sin is there.
And who shall heal
Or disinfect this air?
Who disenchant it of the pleasant spell,
Or break the unseen snare?
Be not deceived!
Into each human vein
Sin penetrates, and we with opiates seek
To soothe the subtle pain.
It dims the eye,
It dulls the inner ear;
It dazzles, and it darkens, and it blinds,
It worketh awe and fear.
It worketh wrath,
And woe, and want, and doom;
It leads us darkly to the second death,
The everlasting tomb.
Love not the world,
Its dreams, its songs, its lies!
Those who have followed in its train are not
The true, and good, and wise.
The wise and good,
They chose the better part;
To the true world that is to come, they gave
The true and single heart.
Love not the world!
He in whose heart the love
Of vanity has found a place, shuts out
The enduring world above.
Love not the world,
However fair it seems!
Who loveth this fond world, the love of God
Abideth not in him.
That heart of thine
For God, thy God, was made:
Who loves this God of love, he only lives;
Who loveth not is dead.
Though this wide earth,
With all its love and gold,
Were his, yet still he liveth not, whose heart
To God is sealed and cold.
Seek not the world!
‘Tis a vain show at best;
Bow not before its idol shrine; in God
Find thou thy joy and rest.
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.