Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Richard Crashaw (1613?–1640)The Dear Bargain
| LORD! what is man? why should he cost you | |
| So dear? what had his ruin lost you? | |
| Lord! what is man, that Thou hast overbought | |
| So much a thing of nought? | |
| Love is too kind, I see, and can | 5 |
| Make but a simple merchant man; | |
| ’Twas for such sorry merchandise, | |
| Bold painters have put out his eyes. | |
| Alas! sweet Lord, what wer’t to Thee, | |
| If there were no such worms as we? | 10 |
| Heaven ne’er the less still heav’n would be | |
| Should mankind dwell | |
| In the deep hell, | |
| What have his woes to do with Thee? | |
| Let him go weep | 15 |
| O’er his own wounds, | |
| Seraphims will not sleep, | |
| Nor spheres let fall their faithful rounds: | |
| Still would the youthful spirits sing, | |
| And still the spacious palace ring: | 20 |
| Still would those beauteous ministers of light | |
| Burn all as bright, | |
| And bow their flaming heads before Thee, | |
| Still thrones and dominations would adore Thee, | |
| Still would those wakeful sons of fire | 25 |
| Keep warm Thy praise | |
| Both nights and days, | |
| And teach Thy loved name to their noble lyre. | |
| Let froward dust then do its kind, | |
| And give itself as sport to the proud wind; | 30 |
| Why should a piece of peevish clay plead shares | |
| In the eternity of Thy old cares? | |
| Why should’st Thou bow Thy awful breast to see | |
| What mine own madnesses have done with me? | |
| Should not the king still keep his throne, | 35 |
| Because some desperate fool’s undone? | |
| Or will the world’s illustrious eyes | |
| Weep for every worm that dies? | |
| Will the gallant sun | |
| E’er the less glorious run? | 40 |
| Will he hang down his golden head, | |
| Or e’er the sooner seek his western bed, | |
| Because some foolish fly | |
| Grows wanton, and will die? | |
| If I was lost in misery, | 45 |
| What was it to Thy heav’n and Thee? | |
| What was it to the precious blood, | |
| If my foul heart call’d for a flood? | |
| What if my faithless soul and I | |
| Would needs fall in | 50 |
| With guilt and sin? | |
| What did the Lamb that He should die? | |
| What did the Lamb that He should need, | |
| When the wolf sins, Himself to bleed? | |
| If my base lust | 55 |
| Bargain’d with death and well-beseeming dust, | |
| Why should the white | |
| Lamb’s bosom write | |
| The purple name | |
| Of my sin’s shame? | 60 |
| Why should His unstain’d breast make good | |
| My blushes with His own heart-blood? | |
| O my Saviour, make me see, | |
| How dearly Thou hast paid for me, | |
| That lost again my life may prove, | 65 |
| As then in death, so now in love. | |