Stands dizzied, shock’d, and flush’d, like one Set sudden neck-deep in the sea; And, though her bond for endless time To his good pleasure gives her o’er, The slightest favour seems a crime, Because it makes her love him more. But that she ne’er will let him know; For what were love should reverence cease? A thought which makes her reason so Inscrutable, it seems caprice. With her, as with a desperate town, Too weak to stand, too proud to treat, The conqueror, though the walls are down, Has still to capture street by street; But, after that, habitual faith, Divorced from self, where late ’twas due, Walks nobly in its novel path, And she’s to changed allegiance true; And prizing what she can’t prevent, (Right wisdom, often misdeem’d whim), Her will’s indomitably bent On mere submissiveness to him; To him she’ll cleave, for him forsake Father’s and mother’s fond command! He is her lord, for he can take Hold of her faint heart with his hand. II. _Beauty_. ‘Beauty deludes.’ O shaft well shot, To strike the mark’s true opposite! That ugly good is scorn’d proves not ’Tis beauty lies, but lack of it. By Heaven’s law the Jew might take A slave to wife, if she was fair; So strong a plea does beauty make That, where ’tis seen, discretion’s there. If, by a monstrous chance, we learn That this illustrious vaunt’s a lie, Our minds, by which the eyes discern, See hideous contrariety. And laugh at Nature’s wanton mood, Which, thus a swinish thing to flout, Though haply in its gross way good, Hangs such a jewel in its snout. III. _Lais and Lucretia_. Did first his beauty wake her sighs? That’s Lais! Thus Lucretia’s known: The beauty in her Lover’s eyes Was admiration of her own. THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE. 1 Oh, beating heart of sweet alarm, Which stays the lover’s step, when near His mistress and her awful charm Of grace and innocence sincere! I held the half-shut door, and heard The voice of my betrothed wife, Who sang my verses, every word By music taught its latent life; With interludes of well-touch’d notes, That flash’d, surprising and serene, As meteor after meteor floats The soft, autumnal stars between. There was a passion in her tone, A tremor when she touch’d the keys, Which told me she was there alone, And uttering all her soul at ease. I enter’d; for I did not choose To learn how in her heart I throve, By chance or stealth; beyond her use, Her greeting flatter’d me with love. 2 With true love’s treacherous confidence, And ire, at last to laughter won, She spoke this speech, and mark’d its sense, By action, as her Aunt had done. 3