The Cross by John Donne

Since Christ embraced the cross itself, dare I / His image, th' image of His cross, deny? / Would I have profit by the sacrifice, / And dare the chosen altar to despise? / It bore all other sins, but is it fit / That it should bear the sin of scorning it? / Who from the picture would avert his eye, / How would he fly his pains who there did die? / From me no pulpit, nor misgrounded law, / Nor scandal taken, shall this cross withdraw, / It shall not, for it cannot; for the loss / Of this cross were to me another cross. / Better were worse, for no affliction, / No cross is so extreme, as to have none. / Who can blot out the cross, which th' instrument / Of God dew'd on me in the Sacrament? / Who can deny me power, and liberty / To stretch mine arms, and mine own cross to be? / Swim, and at every stroke thou art thy cross; / The mast and yard make one, where seas do toss; / Look down, thou spiest out crosses in small things; / Look up, thou seest birds raised on crossed wings; / All the globe's frame, and spheres, is nothing else / But the meridians crossing parallels. / Material crosses then good physic be, / But yet spiritual have chief dignity. / These for extracted chemic medicine serve, / And cure much better, and as well preserve. / Then are you your own physic, or need none, / When still'd or purged by tribulation; / For when that cross ungrudged unto you sticks, / Then are you to yourself a crucifix. / As perchance carvers do not faces make, / But that away, which hid them there, do take; / Let crosses, so, take what hid Christ in thee, / And be His image, or not His, but He. / But, as oft alchemists do coiners prove, / So may a self-despising get self-love; / And then, as worst surfeits of best meats be, / So is pride, issued from humility, / For 'tis no child, but monster; therefore cross / Your joy in crosses, else 'tis double loss. / And cross thy senses, else both they and thou / Must perish soon, and to destruction bow. / For if the eye seek good objects, and will take / No cross from bad, we cannot 'scape a snake. / So with harsh, hard, sour, stinking; cross the rest; / Make them indifferent; call, nothing best. / But most the eye needs crossing, that can roam, / And move; to th' others th' objects must come home. / And cross thy heart; for that in man alone / Pants downwards, and hath palpitation. / Cross those dejections, when it downward tends, / And when it to forbidden heights pretends. / And as the brain through bony walls doth vent / By sutures, which a cross's form present, / So when thy brain works, ere thou utter it, / Cross and correct concupiscence of wit. / Be covetous of crosses; let none fall; / Cross no man else, but cross thyself in all. / Then doth the cross of Christ work faithfully / Within our hearts, when we love harmlessly / The cross's pictures much, and with more care / That cross's children, which our crosses are.