‘“My parts had pow’r to charm a sacred nun, Who, disciplin’d and dieted in grace, Believ’d 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 levell’d 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, glaz’d 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 resolv’d my reason into tears; There my white stole of chastity I daff’d, 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 poison’d me, and mine did him restore. ‘In him a plenitude of subtle matter, Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives, Of burning blushes, or of weeping water, Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves, In either’s aptness, as it best deceives, To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes, Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows. ‘That not a heart which in his level came Could ’scape the hail of his all-hurting aim, Showing fair nature is both kind and tame; And veil’d in them, did win whom he would maim. Against the thing he sought he would exclaim; When he most burned in heart-wish’d luxury, He preach’d pure maid, and prais’d cold chastity. ‘Thus merely with the garment of a grace, The naked and concealed fiend he cover’d, That th’unexperient gave the tempter place, Which, like a cherubin, above them hover’d. Who, young and simple, would not be so lover’d? Ay me! I fell, and yet do question make What I should do again for such a sake.