What art thou, Love! thou great mysterious thing? From what hid stock does thy strange nature spring? 'Tis thou that movst the world through every part, And holdst the vast frame close, that nothing start From the due place and office first ordained; By thee were all things made, and are sustained. Sometimes we see thee fully, and can say From hence thou tookst thy rise, and wentst that way; But oftener the short beams of Reason's eye See only there thou art, not how, nor why. How is the loadstone, Nature's subtle pride, By the rude iron woo'd, and made a bride? How was the weapon wounded? what hid flame The strong and conquering metal overcame? Love (this world's grace) exalts his natural state; He feels thee, Love! and feels no more his weight. Ye learned heads whom ivy garlands grace, Why does that twining plant the oak embrace? The oak, for courtship most of all unfit, And rough as are the winds that fight with it. How does the absent pole the needle move? How does his cold and ice beget hot love? Which are the wings of lightness to ascend? Or why does weight to the centre downwards bend? Thus creatures void of life obey thy laws, And seldom we, they never, know the cause. In thy large state, life gives the next degree, Where sense and good apparent places thee; But thy chief palace is man's heart alone; Here are thy triumphs and full glories shown: Handsome desires, and rest, about thee flee, Union, inheritance, zeal, and ecstasy, With thousand joys, cluster around thine head, O'er which a gall-less dove her wings does spread: A gentle lamb, purer and whiter far Than consciences of thine own martyrs are, Lies at thy feet; and thy right hand does hold The mystic sceptre of a cross of gold. Thus dost thou sit (like men, ere sin had framed A guilty blush) naked, but not ashamed. What cause, then, did the fab'lous ancients find, When first their superstition made thee blind? 'Twas they, alas! 'twas they who could not see, When they mistook that monster, Lust, for thee. Thou art a bright, but not consuming, flame; Such in the amazed bush to Moses came, When that, secure, its new-crown'd head did rear, And chid the trembling branches' needless fear; Thy darts are healthful gold, and downwards fall, Soft as the feathers that they are fletched withal. Such, and no other, were those secret darts Which sweetly touched this noblest pair of hearts: Still to one end they both so justly drew, As courteous doves together yoked would do: No weight of birth did on one side prevail; Two twins less even lie in Nature's scale: They mingled fates, and both in each did share; They both were servants, they both princes were. If any joy to one of them was sent, It was most his to whom it least was meant; And Fortune's malice betwixt both was cross'd, For striking one, it wounded the other most. Never did marriage such true union find, Or men's desires with so glad violence bind; For there is still some tincture left of sin,