"The Coronet" - Andrew Marvell

Just some random (and quick) thoughts on one of my favourite poems. "The Coronet" discusses the awful struggle that goes through a Christian artist's mind upon composition of a work. Am I pleasing God? Or am I composing this to praise my 'own' abilities and bring glory to myself? The persona in "The Coronet" tries to weave a 'coronet' (a crown) for God in the form of a poem..... The very content is an embodiment of the struggle:

When for the thorns with which I long, too long,
With many a piercing wound,
My Saviour’s head have crowned,
I seek with garlands to redress that wrong:
Through every garden, every mead,
I gather flowers (my fruits are only flowers),
Dismantling all the fragrant towers
That once adorned my shepherdess’s head.
And now when I have summed up all my store,
Thinking (so I myself deceive)
So rich a chaplet thence to weave
As never yet the King of Glory wore:
Alas, I find the serpent old
That, twining in his speckled breast,
About the flowers disguised does fold,
With wreaths of fame and interest.
Ah, foolish man, that wouldst debase with them,
And mortal glory, Heaven’s diadem!
But Thou who only couldst the serpent tame,
Either his slippery knots at once untie;
And disentangle all his winding snare;
Or shatter too with him my curious frame,
And let these wither, so that he may die,
Though set with skill and chosen out with care:
That they, while Thou on both their spoils dost tread,
May crown thy feet, that could not crown thy head.

...

Praise be to God that He can still graciously bless what work we do, in spite of our sins as we compose it.