no sooner. O new and ancient beauty! O miserable was my state, when I lived without thy love! O wretched was my condition, when I knew thee not! intolerable blindness of my heart, when I saw thee not! I sought thee far abroad, when thou wert within me; yet, at length, though late, I have found thee, let not thy mercy suffer me, O Lord, that ever I forsake or leave thee again. And, because to have eyes to see thee is one of the chiefest things that pleaseth thee; Lord, give me the eyes of a solitary turtle, to contemplate thee, give me chaste eyes full of modesty, humble and amorous, sanctified and weeping, attentive and discreet eyes, which may understand and perform thy will; Lord, give me grace to behold thee with such eyes, as thou mayest look upon me again, as thou didst upon Peter, when he denied thee, and didst move him to bitter compunction for his sins. Look upon me as thou didst upon the prodigal child, when thou didst run to embrace and kiss him; or as upon the publican, not daring to lift up his eyes to heaven. Behold me with those eyes, that thou didst invite Mary Magdalen to penance, and to wash thy feet with tears; or, with those eyes wherewith the spouse in the Canticles incited thee to her love, when thou saidst: "Quam pulchra es amica mea, quam pulchra es! occuli tui columbarum."[1]
- ↑ Cant. c. iv. v. 1.
