_Why dost thou scruple to unfold_ _A Mystery that does my Life concern?_ _If thou ne’er speakst, it will be told;_ _For Lovers all things can discern._ _From overy Look, from every bashful Grace,_ _That still succeed each other in thy Face,_ _I shall the dear transporting Secret learn:_ _But ‘tis a Pleasure not to be exprest,_ } _To hear it by the Voice confest,_ } _When soft Sighs breath it on my panting Breast._ } _All calm and silent is the Grove,_ _Whose shading Boughs resist the Day;_ _Here thou mayst blush, and talk of Love,_ _While only Winds, unheeding, stay,_ _That will not bear the Sound away:_ _While I with solemn awful Joy,_ _All my attentive Faculties employ;_ _List’ning to every valu’d Word;_ _And in my Soul the secret Treasure hoard:_ _There like some Mystery Divine,_ _The wond’rous Knowledge I’ll enshrine._ _Love can his Joys no longer call his own,_ _Than the dear Secret’s kept unknown._ There is nothing more true than those two last Lines: and that Love ceases to be a Pleasure, when it ceases to be a Secret, and one you ought to keep sacred: For the World, which never makes a right Judgment of things, will misinterpret Love, as they do Religion; every one judging it, according to the Notion he has of it, or the Talent of his Sense. _Love_ (as a great Duke said) _is like Apparitions; every one talks of them, but few have seen ‘em_: Every body thinks himself capable of understanding Love, and that he is a Master in the Art of it; when there is nothing so nice, or difficult, to be rightly comprehended; and indeed cannot be, but to a Soul very delicate. Nor will he make himself known to the Vulgar: There must be an uncommon Fineness in the Mind that contains him; the rest he only visits in as many Disguises as there are Dispositions and Natures, where he makes but a short stay, and is gone. He can fit himself to all Hearts, being the greatest Flatterer in the World: And he possesses every one with a Confidence, that they are in the number of his Elect; and they think they know him perfectly, when nothing but the Spirits refined possess him in his Excellency. From this difference of Love, in different Souls, proceed those odd fantastick Maxims, which so many hold of so different kinds: And this makes the most innocent Pleasures pass oftentimes for Crimes, with the unjudging Croud, who call themselves Lovers: And you will have your Passion censur’d by as many as you shall discover it to, and as many several ways. I advise you therefore, _Damon_, to make no Confidents of your Amours; and believe, that Silence has, with me, the most powerful Charm.