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The deep-green em'rald, in whose fresh regard

Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;

The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend

With objects manifold; each several stone,

With wit well blazoned, smiled, or made some moan.

'"Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,

Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,

Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,

But yield them up where I myself must render-

That is, to you, my origin and ender;

For these, of force, must your oblations be,

Since I their altar, you enpatron me.

'"O then advance of yours that phraseless hand

Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;

Take all these similes to your own command,

Hallowed with sighs that burning lungs did raise;

What me your minister for you obeys

Works under you; and to your audit comes

Their distract parcels in combined sums.

'"Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,

Or sister sanctified, of holiest note,

Which late her noble suit in court did shun,

Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;

For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,

But kept cold distance, and did thence remove

To spend her living in eternal love.

'"But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave

The thing we have not, mast'ring what not strives,

Playing the place which did no form receive,

Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves!

She that her fame so to herself contrives,

The scars of battle scapeth by the flight,

And makes her absence valiant, not her might.

'"O pardon me in that my boast is true!

The accident which brought me to her eye

Upon the moment did her force subdue,

And now she would the caged cloister fly.

Religious love put out religion's eye.

Not to be tempted, would she be immured,

And now to tempt all liberty procured.

'"How mighty then you are, O hear me tell!

The broken bosoms that to me belong

Have emptied all their fountains in my well,

And mine I pour your ocean all among.

I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,

Must for your victory us all congest,

As compound love to physic your cold breast.

'"My parts had pow'r to charm a sacred nun,

Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,

Believed her eyes when they t'assail begun,

All vows and consecrations giving place,

O most potential love, vow, bond, nor space,

In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,

For thou art all, and all things else are thine.

'"When thou impressest, what are precepts worth

Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,

How coldly those impediments stand forth,

Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!

Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense, 'gainst

shame.

And sweetens, in the suff'ring pangs it bears,

The aloes of all forces, shocks and fears.

'"Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,

Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine,

And supplicant their sighs to your extend,

To leave the batt'ry that you make 'gainst mine,

Lending soft audience to my sweet design,

And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath,

That shall prefer and undertake my troth."

'This said, his wat'ry eyes he did dismount,

Whose sights till then were levelled on my face;

Each cheek a river running from a fount

With brinish current downward flowed apace.

O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!

Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses

That flame through water which their hue encloses.

'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies

In the small orb of one particular tear!

But with the inundation of the eyes

What rocky heart to water will not wear?

What breast so cold that is not warmed here?

O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,

Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.

'For lo, his passion, but an art of craft,

Even there resolved my reason into tears;

There my white stole of chastity I daffed,

Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;

Appear to him as he to me appears,

All melting; though our drops this diff'rence bore:

His poisoned me, and mine did him restore.

'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,

Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,

Of