Why then adulterous loves? If the things of God satisfy, and the lesser things are a thorn bush or hovel compared to “bright loveliness itself,” then how could this happen?

The influences my vile heart sucks in

Of puddle water boiled by sun beams till

Its spiritless and dead

My life is a matter of what I consume, what takes my attention. We cannot think about things we have never experienced or seen. Yes, we can rearrange elements we have previously received. But something truly new, we simply don’t know. And when we experience a thing which is a rearrangement of things we already know, that new configuration can more easily become part of what we consider.

When something is sinful, crooked, vicious, or wicked, how much more easily it sticks in our mind.  Why would our heart make room for these things which are vile in themselves, a puddle smoldering in the summer fun, filled with the runoff and offal of the day? We have a vile heart which “sucks in” such things. 

There is no life in these things. They are spiritless. Consider the word “dead” at the end of this clause. Here we can think of something more than inoperative (the car is dead). Dead for a man as close to nature as a 17^th century wilderness pastor, a man who took care of his own stock, who butchered chickens and quartered deer, dead would have a visceral connation. It is a puddle filled with the dead. 

There. The heart of man without restoration.

Its spiritless and dead, nothing more thin

Taste wealthier than those that dost distill.

If what God is good, tastes wealthy, then why am I lapping at a puddle?

As the poet, as I, think this matter through, I feel a shiver in heart even though it is a hot day. My heart grows numb; it is dying . I shrivel and yet I still continue at that which ruins and wastes my life. My distraction, which is a weak word for what I do, my distraction makes my heart numb, it deadens my life to spend its efforts on something worthless a bauble, a toy (in the worst sense of the word):

This seems to numb my heart to think that I

Should null all good to optimate a toy.

When I realize what I am doing, it makes my heart number, it turns to nothing (null) all good, to realize that I am using my efforts (optimate) something useless (a toy).