Daily Poem: This World I’d Wish to Leave and God to Serve ~ Anonymous
The opening lines from an unknown woman in fourteenth century Italy resonate more strongly than we might wish in 2017.
This World I’d Wish to Leave and God to Serve
~ Anonymous Woman, Italy, Fourteenth Century
This world I’d wish to leave and God to serve
and myself to sever from all vanity,
because the growth and increase I observe
of falsehood, foolishness, and villainy.
Good sense and courtesy also expire,
high excellence and generosity;
wherefore no lord or husband I desire
nor in the world remain now willingly.
Seeing that evil by every man is worn,
all of them I do disdain,
and toward God my self I turn.
My father fills me with an anxious pain
for from serving Christ he does prevent me:
I know not to what lord he wants to give me.
