“To love both frees the lover from himself
And binds him to the loved; so to be loved
Is to become a god who stands above
The lover as the lover’s choicest wealth.
But the love’s sweet freedom brings a double stealth,
An unseen chain, when god’s the world, and love
Is lust, and pride of life’s a grace: the loved,
This pampered god, is surreptitious self.
A million billion trillion years from now,
The gods pursued so hotly in our day
Will find no selfish slaves to scrape and bow:
The world and its desires all pass away.
Alone th’eternal God transforms, forgives:
And he who does God’s will forever lives.”

D. A. Carson, Holy Sonnets of the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 109.

A sonnet on 1 John 2:15-17:
Μὴ ἀγαπᾶτε τὸν κόσμον μηδὲ τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷ τὸν κόσμον, οὐκ ἔστιν ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ πατρὸς ἐν αὐτῷ· ὅτι πᾶν τὸ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, ἡ ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ ἡ ἐπιθυμία τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν καὶ ἡ ἀλαζονεία τοῦ βίου, οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου ἐστίν. καὶ ὁ κόσμος παράγεται καὶ ἡ ἐπιθυμία αὐτοῦ, ὁ δὲ ποιῶν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.