The Apostasy

One star

    Is better far

   Than many precious stones;

One sun, which is by its own luster seen,

   Is worth ten thousand golden thrones;

   A juicy herb, or spire of grass,

   In useful virtue, native green,

   An em'rald doth surpass,

   Hath in 't more value, though less seen.

        No wars,

    Nor mortal jars,

   Nor bloody feuds, nor coin,

Nor griefs which those occasions, saw I then;

   Nor wicked thieves which this purloin;

   I had not thoughts that were impure;

   Esteeming both women and men

   God's work, I was secure,

   And reckoned peace my choicest gem.

        As Eve,

    I did believe

   Myself in Eden set,

Affecting neither gold nor ermined crowns,

   Nor aught else that I need forget;

   No mud did foul my limpid streams,

   Nor mist eclipsed my sun with frowns;

   Set off with heav'nly beams,

   My joys were meadows, fields, and towns.

        Those things

    Which cherubins

   Did not at first behold

Among God's works, which Adam did not see —

   As robes, and stones enchased in gold,

   Rich cabinets, and such-like fine

   Inventions — could not ravish me;

   I thought not bowls of wine

   Needful for my felicity.

        All bliss

    Consists in this,

   To do as Adam did,

And not to know those superficial joys

   Which were from him in Eden hid,

   Those little new-invented things,

   Fine lace and silks, such childish toys

   As ribands are and rings,

   Or worldly pelf that us destroys.

        For God,

    Both great and good,

   The seeds of melancholy

Created not, but only foolish men,

   Grown mad with customary folly

   Which doth increase their wants, so dote

   As when they elder grow they then

   Such baubles chiefly note;

   More fools at twenty years than ten.

        But I,

    I know not why,

   Did learn among them too,

At length; and when I once with blemished eyes

   Began their pence and toys to view,

   Drowned in their customs, I became

   A stranger to the shining skies,

   Lost as a dying flame,

   And hobby-horses brought to prize.

        The sun

    And moon forgone

   As if unmade, appear

No more to me; to God and heaven dead

   I was, as though they never were;

   Upon some useless gaudy book,

   When what I knew of God was fled,

   The child being taught to look,

   His soul was quickly murtherëd.

        O fine!

    O most divine!

   O brave! they cried; and showed

Some tinsel thing whose glittering did amaze,

   And to their cries its beauty owed;

   Thus I on riches, by degrees,

   Of a new stamp did learn to gaze,

   While all the world for these

   I lost, my joy turned to a blaze.