Let me not love the world again,
And seek my pleasure there;
For Christ received His death from men,
And woe they made Him bear.
But let my love to Jesus be
So constant and so strong,
That my weak heart may ne'er be free
To do the Savior wrong.
What is there in the world, I ask,
So irresistible?
Themselves say 'tis a gilded mask,
Who looks shall know it well.
Has it a love like Jesus has,
A constancy like His?
Its love is no true love, alas!
Its constancy naught is.
Has it a beauty to compare
With our Lord's blessed home?
A native purity as rare
As fills the "world to come?"
None, none; 'tis but a withered thing,
Loveless and full of change,
Its beauty long has taken wing,
A taint doth in it range.
For such a wreck 'tweer sad indeed
That I from Christ should turn.
O Christ! from out my bosom weed
All thoughts that for it yearn.
Fill full my soul with thy sweet love,
My eyes keep fixed upon
The wonders thou hast wrought above
For me, when time is gone.
So shall I run, nor turn aside
To one allurement here;
Unswerving as the stars which ride
Our darken'd hemisphere.