Richard Crashaw

Thou water turn’st to wine, fair friend of life, Thy foe, to cross the sweet arts of thy reign, Distils from thence the tears of wrath and strife, And so turns wine to water back again.

Could not once blinding me, cruel, suffice? When first I look’d on thee, I lost mine eyes.

See here an easy feast that knows no wound, That under hunger’s teeth will needs be sound; A subtle harvest of unbounded bread, What would ye more? Here food itself is fed.

Let it no longer be a forlorn hope To wash an Ethiope; He’s wash’d, his gloomy skin a peaceful shade, For his white soul is made; And now, I doubt not, the Eternal Dove A black-fac’d house will love.

The world’s light shines, shine as it will, The world will love its darkness still. I doubt though when the world’s in hell, It will not love its darkness half so well.