I find the Flame that set my Soul on Fire In you was nothing but a loose Desire. I should have reason’d ere it was too late, And so prevented my approaching Fate: My busie Thoughts were all on you bestow’d, I for my own repose not one allow’d: So pleas’d was I, whilst in your Lovely Arms, I thought myself secure from future Harms: But yet you may remember, oft I’ve said, You’d be the Ruin of a harmless Maid; But those were Notions that abortive dy’d, And I upon your flatt’ring Oaths rely’d. Cou’d I cease loving you, I shou’d have Ease, But that ’s a Cure far worse than the Disease; And ’tis (alas) impossible, I find, To raze your Image from my tortur’d Mind; And it ’s a thing which I did ne’er design, For your Condition is far worse than mine; You ’d better share what my poor soul endures, Than th’ empty Joys you find in new Amours. So far am I from envying your Fate, I rather pity your unhappy State. I all your false dissembling Arts defie: I know I ’m rooted in your Memory, And am perhaps the happiest of the Two, In that I now am more employ’d than you. They’ve made me Keeper of the Convent Door, Which is a Place I ne’er supply’d before; It is an Office I ne’er thought t’ have had; All who discourse me think that I am mad. Our Convent too must be as mad as I, Or they might have perceiv’d my Incapacity. Oh! how I wish to be as blest as they Who, as your Servants, your Commands obey. I shou’d be Proud, like one of them, to wait On you, tho’ ’twere ev’n in the meanest State. My Love for you I don’t at all repent; That you ’ve seduced me, I am well content. Your Rig’rous Absence, tho’ ’twill fatal prove, Yet lessens not the Vigour of my Love. My Passion I to all the World proclaim, And make no Secret of my raging Flame. Some Things I ’ve done irregular, ’tis true, And glory’d in them, ’cause they were for you; My Fame, my Honour, and Religion, are All made subservient to the Love I bear. Whilst I am writing, I have no intent That you shou’d Answer what I now have sent: Force not your self, I ’ll not receive a Word You send, that comes not of its own accord. If not by writing you do Ease receive, So ’t too to me shall Satisfaction give, To Pardon all your Faults I ’m much inclin’d, And shall be pleas’d to prove you ’re not unkind.