| |
| LIKE as the wight, farre banished from his soyle, | |
| In countrey strange, opprest with grief and paine, | |
| Doth nothing way his long and weary toyle, | |
| So that he may come to his home againe; | |
| And not accounts of perils great at hand, | 5 |
| For to attayne his owne desired land: | |
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| Such is the state of vs thy seruantes all, | |
| Most gratious God, that here on earth do dwell: | |
| We banisht were through Adam’s cursed fall | |
| From place of blisse euen to the pit of hell: | 10 |
| Our vice and sinnes as markes and signes wee haue, | |
| Which still we beare, and shal doe to our graue. | |
| |
| When that all hope of remedy was past, | |
| For our redresse when nothing could be founde, | |
| Thine onely Sonne thou didst send downe at last | 15 |
| To salue this sore, and heale our deadly wounde: | |
| Yet did they please to vse him as a meane | |
| Us banisht wights for to call home agayne. | |
| |
| And for because thy Godhead thought it meete, | |
| The sacred booke of thy most holy will | 20 |
| Thou didst vs leaue a lanterne to our feete, | |
| To light our steppes in this our voyage still, | |
| Directing vs what to eschew or take: | |
| All this thou doest for vs vile sinners’ sake. | |
| |
| Graunt vs sound fayth, that we take stedfast holde | 25 |
| On Christ his death, which did our raunsome pay; | |
| So shall we shun the daungers manifold | |
| Which would vs let, and cause vs run astray: | |
| The wicked world, the flesh, the diuell, and all, | |
| Are stumbling-blockes, ech howre to make vs fall. | 30 |
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| This dungeon vile of Sathan is the nest, | |
| A denne of dole, a sinke of deadly sinne. | |
| Heauen is the hauen in which we hope to rest; | |
| Death is the dore whereby we enter in. | |
| Sweete Sauiour, graunt that so wee liue to die, | 35 |
| That after death we liue eternally. | |
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