What thing is love?—for (well I wot) love is a thing

His golden locks time hath to silver turned; O time too swift! O swiftness never ceasing! His youth ’gainst time and age hath ever spurned, But spurned in vain; youth waneth by encreasing.

My merry, merry, merry roundelay Concludes with Cupid’s curse: They that do change old love for new, Pray gods, they change for worse!

Song like a rose should be; Each rhyme a petal sweet; For fragrance, melody, That when her lips repeat The words, her heart may know What secret makes them so:—

And also there’s a little star So white a virgin’s it must be:— Perhaps the lamp my love in heaven Hangs out to light the way for me.

O fairest of the feather’d train! For whom I sing, for whom I burn, Attend with pity to my strain, And grant my love a kind return.

The everlasting covenant which God has made with Jesus, and through Jesus with all His beloved people, individually, is a strong ground of consolation amidst the tremblings of human hope, the fluctuations of creature things, and the …