The way to bliss lies not on beds of down,
And he that had no cross deserves no crown.

Quarles frames Christian “bliss” (true happiness or salvation) as something reached through hardship rather than comfort. “Beds of down” evokes luxury and ease; the line rejects the idea that spiritual fulfillment is compatible with a life devoted to softness or self-indulgence. The second line draws on a familiar Christian paradox: the “cross” signifies suffering, discipline, and faithful endurance (echoing Christ’s Passion and the believer’s call to bear a cross), while the “crown” suggests heavenly reward. Together, the couplet argues that merit and spiritual victory are inseparable from trial—an ethic of perseverance typical of Quarles’s devotional, moralizing verse.