Classic Poem

The Garden's quit with me: as yesterday
I walked in that, to day that walks in me;
Through all my memory
It sweetly wanders, and has found a way
To make me honestly possess
What still another's is.

Yet this gain's dainty sense doth gall my mind
With the remembrance of a bitter loss.
Alas, how odd and cross
Are earth's delights, in which the soul can find
No honey, but withal some sting
To check the pleasing thing!

For now I'm haunted with the thought of that
Heav'n-planted garden, where felicity
Flourished on every tree.
Lost, lost it is; for at the guarded gate
A flaming sword forbiddeth Sin
(That's I,) to enter in.

O Paradise! when I was turned out
Hadst thou but kept the serpent still within,
My banishment had been
Less sad and dangerous: but round about
This wide world runneth raging he
To banish me from me:

I feel that through my soul he death hath shot;
And thou, alas, hast locked up life's tree.
O miserable me,
WhaThelp were left, had J ESUS 's pity not
Shewed me another tree, which can
Enliven dying man.

That tree, made fertile by his own dear blood;
And by his death with quick'ning virtue fraught.
I now dread not the thought
Of barracado'd Eden, since as good
A Paradise I planted see
On open Calvary.