Confession

O What a cunning guest
Is this same Grief! Within my heart I made
Closets; and in them many a chest;
And like a master in my trade,
In those chests, boxes; in each box, a till:
Yet Grief knows all, and enters when he will.
No scrue, no piercer can
Into a piece of timber work and winde,
As God's afflictions into man,
When he a torture hath design'd.
They are too subtill for the subt'llest hearts;
And fall, like rheumes, upon the tendrest parts.
We are the earth; and they,
Like moles within us, heave and cast about:
And till they foot and clutch their prey,
They never cool, much lesse give out.
No smith can make such locks, but they have keyes;
Closets are halls to them; and hearts, high-wayes.
Onely an open breast
Doth shut them out, so that they cannot enter;
Or, if they enter, cannot rest,
But quickly seek some new adventure.
Smooth open hearts no fastning have; but fiction
Doth give a hold and handle to affliction.
Wherefore my faults and sinnes,
Lord, I acknowledge; take thy plagues away:
For since confession pardon winnes,
I challenge here the brightest day,
The clearest diamond: let them do their best,
They shall be thick and cloudie to my breast.