’Tis truth (although this truth’s a star Too deep-enskied for all to see), As poets of grammar, lovers are The fountains of morality. Child, would you shun the vulgar doom, In love disgust, in death despair? Know, death must come and love must come, And so for each your soul prepare. Who pleasure follows pleasure slays; God’s wrath upon himself he wreaks; But all delights rejoice his days Who takes with thanks, and never seeks. The wrong is made and measured by The right’s inverted dignity. Change love to shame, as love is high So low in hell your bed shall be. How easy to keep free from sin! How hard that freedom to recall! For dreadful truth it is that men Forget the heavens from which they fall. Lest sacred love your soul ensnare, With pious fancy still infer ‘How loving and how lovely fair Must He be who has fashion’d her!’ Become whatever good you see, Nor sigh if, forthwith, fades from view The grace of which you may not be The subject and spectator too. Love’s perfect blossom only blows Where noble manners veil defect Angels maybe familiar; those Who err each other must respect. Love blabb’d of is a great decline; A careless word unsanctions sense; But he who casts Heaven’s truth to swine Consummates all incontinence. Not to unveil before the gaze Of an imperfect sympathy In aught we are, is the sweet praise And the main sum of modesty. THE DANCE. 1 ‘My memory of Heaven awakes! She’s not of the earth, although her light, As lantern’d by her body, makes A piece of it past bearing bright. So innocently proud and fair She is, that Wisdom sings for glee And Folly dies, breathing one air With such a bright-cheek’d chastity; And though her charms are a strong law Compelling all men to admire, They go so clad with lovely awe None but the noble dares desire. He who would seek to make her his Will comprehend that souls of grace Own sweet repulsion, and that ’tis The quality of their embrace To be like the majestic reach Of coupled suns, that, from afar, Mingle their mutual spheres, while each Circles the twin obsequious star; And, in the warmth of hand to hand, Of heart to heart, he’ll vow to note And reverently understand How the two spirits shine remote; And ne’er to numb fine honour’s nerve, Nor let sweet awe in passion melt, Nor fail by courtesies to observe The space which makes attraction felt; Nor cease to guard like life the sense Which tells him that the embrace of love Is o’er a gulf of difference Love cannot sound, nor death remove.’ 2 This learn’d I, watching where she danced, Native to melody and light, And now and then toward me glanced, Pleased, as I hoped, to please my sight.