Often A Retrospect Delights The

Now You Know How Much My Love For You Burns Deep In Me When I Forget About Our Emptiness, And Deal With Shadows As With Solid Things.

Be As A Tower Firmly Set; Shakes Not Its Top For Any Blast That Blows.

To Course Across More Kindly Waters Now My Talent's Little Vessel Lifts Her Sails, Leaving Behind Herself A Sea So Cruel; And What I Sing Will Be That Second Kingdom, In Which The Human Soul Is Cleansed Of Sin, Becoming Worthy Of Ascent To Heaven.

I Affirm That Gain Is Precisely That Which Comes Oftener To The Bad Man Than To The Good; For Illegitimate Gains Never Come To The Good At All, Because They Reject Them. And Lawful Gains Rarely Come To The Good, Because, Since Much Anxious Care Is Needful Thereto, And The Anxious Care Of The Good Man Is Directed To Weightier Matters, Rarely Does The Good Man Give Sufficient Attention Thereto. Wherefore It Is Clear That In Every Way The Advent Of These Riches Is Iniquitous.

This Miserable Way Is Taken By The Sorry Souls Of Those Who Lived Without Disgrace And Without Praise. They Now Commingle With The Coward Angels, The Company Of Those Who Were Not Rebels Nor Faithful To Their God, But Stood Apart. The Heavens, That Their Beauty Not Be Lessened, Have Cast Them Out, Nor Will Deep Hell Receive Them - Even The Wicked Cannot Glory In Them.