Ah! I remember well (and how can I But evermore remember well) when first Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was The flame we felt; when as we sat and sighed And looked upon each other, and conceived Not what we ailed,—yet something we did ail; And yet were well, and yet we were not well, And what was our disease we could not tell. Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look: and thus In that first garden of our simpleness We spent our childhood. But when years began To reap the fruit of knowledge, ah how then Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow, Check my presumption and my forwardness; Yet still would give me flowers, still would me show What she would have me, yet not have me know. Take also the passage that presently follows this; it alludes to a game which has long been obsolete,—but some fair reader I doubt not will remember the lines when she dances next. And when in sport with other company Of nymphs and shepherds we have met abroad, How would she steal a look, and watch mine eye Which way it went? And when at Barley-break It came unto my turn to rescue her, With what an earnest, swift and nimble pace Would her affection make her feet to run, And further run than to my hand! her race Had no stop but my bosom, where no end. And when we were to break again, how late And loth her trembling hand would part with mine; And with how slow a pace would she set forth To meet the encountering party who contends To attain her, scarce affording him her fingers' ends![1] [Footnote 1: HYMEN'S TRIUMPH.] CHAPTER LIV. P. I. MORE CONCERNING LOVE AND MARRIAGE, AND MARRIAGE WITHOUT LOVE. Nay Cupid, pitch thy trammel where thou please, Thou canst not fail to catch such fish as these. QUARLES. Whether chance or choice have most to do in the weighty concerns of love and matrimony, is as difficult a question, as whether chance or skill have most influence upon a game at backgammon. Both enter into the constitution of the game; and choice will always have some little to do with love, though so many other operating motives may be combined with it, that it sometimes bears a very insignificant part: but from marriage it is too frequently precluded on the one side, unwilling consent, and submission to painful circumstances supplying its place; and there is one sect of Christians, (the Moravians,) who where they hold to the rigour of their institute, preclude it on both sides. They marry by lot; and if divorces ever take place among them, the scandal has not been divulged to the profaner world.