“Thy food is scarce and scanty too,
        ’Tis worms and trash that thou dost eat
    Thy present state I pity do,
        Come, I’ll provide thee better meat. 
    I’ll feed thee with white bread and milk,
        And sugar-plums, if them thou crave;
    I’ll cover thee with finest silk,
        That from the cold I may thee save.

    “My father’s palace shall be thine,
        Yea, in it thou shalt sit and sing;
    My little bird, if thou’lt be mine,
        The whole year round shall be thy spring. 
    I’ll teach thee all the notes at court,
        Unthought-of music thou shalt play,
    And all that thither do resort
        Shall praise thee for it every day.

    “I’ll keep thee safe from cat and cur,
        No manner o’ harm shall come to thee;
    Yea, I will be thy succorer,
        My bosom shall thy cabin be.” 
    But lo, behold, the bird is gone! 
        These charmings would not make her yield;
    The child’s left at the bush alone,
        The bird flies yonder o’er the field.

    The child of Christ an emblem is;
        The bird to sinners I compare;
    The thorns are like those sins of theirs,
        Which do surround them everywhere. 
    Her songs, her food, her sunshine day,
        Are emblems of those foolish toys
    Which to destruction lead the way—­
        The fruit of worldly, empty joys.

    The arguments this child doth choose
        To draw to him a bird thus wild,
    Shows Christ familiar speech doth use,
        To make the sinner reconciled. 
    The bird, in that she takes her wing
        To speed her from him after all,
    Shows us vain man loves any thing
        Much better than the heavenly call.

The sinner warned.

Thy bed, when thou liest down in it, preacheth to thee thy grave; thy sleep, thy death; and thy rising in the morning, thy resurrection to judgment.

Wouldst thou know, sinner, what thou art? look up to the cross, and behold a weeping, bleeding, dying Jesus; nothing could do but that, nothing could save thee but his blood:  angels could not, saints could not, God could not, because he could not lie, because he could not deny himself.

What a thing is sin, that it should sink all that bear its burden; yea, it sunk the Son of God himself into death and the grave, and had also sunk him into hell-fire for ever, had he not teen the Son of God, had he not been able to take it on his hack and bear it away.

O this Lamh of God!  Sinners were going to hell; Christ was the delight of his Father, and had a whole heaven to himself; hut that did not content him, heaven could not hold him, he must come into the world to save sinners.

Aye, and had he not come thy sins had sunk thee, thy sins had provoked the wrath of God against thee to thy destruction for ever.  There is no man hut is a sinner; there is no sin hut would damn an angel, should God lay it to his charge.