Classic Poem

My life's a pleasure and a pain;
A real loss, a real gain;
A glorious paradise of joys,
A grievous prison of annoys.

I daily joy, and daily mourn,
Yet daily wait the tide's return:
Then sorrow deep my spirit cheers,
I'm joyful in a flood of tears.

Good cause I have still to be sad,
Good reason always to be glad.
Hence still my joys with sorrows meet,
And still my tears are bitter sweet.

I'm crossed, and yet have all my will,
I'm always empty, always full.
I hunger now, and thirst no more,
Yet do more eager than before.

With meat and drink indeed I'm blest,
Yet feed on hunger, drink on thirst.
My hunger brings a plenteous store,
My plenty makes me hunger more.

Strange is the place of my abode,
I dwell at home, I dwell abroad.
I am not where all men me see,
But where I never yet could be.

I'm full of hell, yet full of heaven;
I'm still upright, yet still uneven.
Imperfect, yet a perfect saint;
I'm ever poor, yet never want.

No mortal eye sees God and lives,
Yet sight of him my soul revives.
I live best when I see most bright;
Yet live by faith, and not by sight.

I'm lib'ral, yet have nought to spare:
Most richly cloth'd, yet stript and bare.
My stock is risen by my fall;
For, having nothing, I have all.

I'm sinful, yet I have no sin;
All spotted o'er, yet wholly clean.
Blackness and beauty both I share,
A hellish black, a heav'nly fair.

They're of the devil, who sin amain:
But I'm of God, yet sin retain:
This traitor vile the throne assumes,
Prevails, yet never overcomes.

I'm without guile an Isr'elite,
Yet like a guileful hypocrite;
Maintaining truth in th' inward part,
With falsehood rooted in my heart.

Two masters, sure, I cannot serve,
But must from one regardless swerve;
Yet self is for my master known,
And Jesus is my Lord alone.

I seek myself incessantly,
Yet daily do myself deny.
To me 'tis lawful evermore
Myself to love and to abhore.

In this vain world would I live, yet see
I'm dead to it, and it to me.
My joy is endless, yet at best
Does hardly for a moment last.