Clothes For Continuance.

The longer thread of life we spin,
The more occasion still to sin.

Away with silks, away with lawn,
I'll have no scenes or curtains drawn;
Give me my mistress as she is,
Dress'd in her nak'd simplicities;
For as my heart e'en so mine eye
Is won with flesh, not drapery.

When flowing garments I behold
Inspir'd with purple, pearl and gold,
I think no other, but I see
In them a glorious leprosy
That does infect and make the rent
More mortal in the vestiment.
As flowery vestures do descry
The wearer's rich immodesty:
So plain and simple clothes do show
Where virtue walks, not those that flow.

Though from without no foes at all we fear,
We shall be wounded by the clothes we wear.

Immortal clothing I put on
So soon as, Julia, I am gone
To mine eternal mansion.

Thou, thou art here, to human sight
Clothed all with incorrupted light;
But yet how more admir'dly bright

Wilt thou appear, when thou art set
In thy refulgent thronelet,
That shin'st thus in thy counterfeit!

Feacie, some say, doth wash her clothes i' th' lie
That sharply trickles from her either eye.
The laundresses, they envy her good-luck,
Who can with so small charges drive the buck.
What needs she fire and ashes to consume,
Who can scour linens with her own salt rheum?