“But since I must depart, and that our love Springing at first but in an earthly mould Transplanted to our souls, now doth remove Earthly affects, which time and distance would, Nothing now can our loves allay, Though as the better Spirits will, That both love us and know our ill, We do not either all the good we may. Thus when our Souls that must immortal be, For our loves cannot die, nor we (unless We die not both together) shall be free Unto their open and eternal peace. Sleep, Death’s Embassador, and best Image, doth yours often so show, That I thereby must plainly know, Death unto us must be freedom and rest.”[11] The second characteristic of this love is that it is purely contemplative, informing the mind with knowledge rather than satisfying the senses with pleasure. Habington has left a poem entitled “To the World. The Perfection of Love,” in which he contrasts this love in which the soul is engaged with thoughts with the love of sense. “You who are earth, and cannot rise Above your sence, Boasting the envyed wealth which lyes Bright in your mistris’ lips or eyes, Betray a pittyed eloquence. “That, which doth joyne our soules, so light And quicke doth move, That, like the eagle in his flight, It doth transcend all humane sight, Lost in the element of love. “You poets reach not this, who sing The praise of dust But kneaded, when by theft you bring The rose and lilly from the spring, Τ’ adorne the wrinckled face of lust. “When we speake love, nor art, nor wit We glosse upon: Our soules engender, and beget Ideas which you counterfeit In your dull propagation. “While time seven ages shall disperse, Wee’le talke of love, And when our tongues hold no commerse, Our thoughts shall mutually converse; And yet the blood no rebell prove. “And though we be of severall kind, Fit for offence: Yet are we so by love refin’d, From impure drosse we are all mind, Death could not more have conquer’d sence.” By virtue of this contemplation in love the passion was freed from any disturbing element due to absence, just as the restriction of love to the soul had been thought to do. Vaughan boasts to Amoret that he can dispense with a sight of her face or with a kiss because when absent from her he can court the mind.