The Agony

            Philosophers have measur’d mountains,

Fathom’d the depths of seas, of states, and kings,

Walk’d with a staff to heav’n, and traced fountains:

            But there are two vast, spacious things,

The which to measure it doth more behove:

Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love.

            Who would know Sin, let him repair

Unto mount Olivet; there shall he see

A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,

            His skin, his garments bloody be.

Sin is that press and vice, which forceth pain

To hunt his cruel food through ev’ry vein.

            Who knows not Love, let him assay

And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike

Did set again abroach, then let him say

            If every he did taste the like.

Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,

Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.

—George  Herbert (1594-1633)