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And venture to speak one good word,

Not for myself, alas ! but for my dearer Lord ?
You have seen already in this lower sphere

Of froth and bubbles, what to look for here :
Say, gentle soul, what can you find

But painted shapes,

Peacocks and apes,

Illustrious flies,

Gilded dunghills, glorious lies;
Goodly surmises

And deep disguises,

Oaths of water, words of wind?

Truth bids me say 'tis time you cease to trust

Your soul to any son of dust.

'Tis time you listen to a braver love,

Which from above

Calls you up higher

And bids you come

And choose your room

Among His own fair sons of fire;

Where you among

The golden throng,

That watches at His palace doors
May pass along,

And follow those fair stars of yours ;
Stars much too fair and pure to wait upon

The false smiles of a sublunary sun.

Sweet, let me prophesy that at last 't will prove

Lays up

Your wary love

his purer and more precious vows,

And means them for a far more worthy Spouse

Than this World of lies can give ye :

Even for Him, with Whom nor cost,
Nor love, nor labour can be lost t;
Him Who never will deceive ye.
Let not my Lord, the mighty Lover
Of souls, disdain that I discover
The hidden art

Of His high stratagem to win your heart :
It was His heavenly art

Kindly to cross you
In your mistaken love;
That, at the next remove

Thence, He might toss you

And strike your troubled heart

Home to Himself, to hide it in His breast,
The bright ambrosial nest

Of Love, of life, and everlasting rest.
Happy mistake!

That thus shall wake

Your wise soul, never to be won

Now with a love below the sun.

Your first choice fails; O when you choose again

May it not be among the sons of men !

Alerías:

THE COMPLAINT OF THE FORSAKEN WIFE OF SAINT ALEXIS.

THE FIRST ELEGY.

I, LATE the Roman youth's loved praise and pride,
Whom long none could obtain, though thousands tried ;
Lo, here am left (alas !) for my lost mate

T'embrace my tears, and kiss an unkind fate.
Sure in my early woes stars were at strife,
And tried to make a widow e'er a wife.

Nor can I tell (and this new tears doth breed)
In what strange path my lord's fair footsteps bleed.
O knew I where he wander'd, I should see
Some solace in my sorrow's certainty:

I'd send my woes in words should weep for me.
(Who knows how powerful well-writ prayers would be?)
Sending's too slow a word; myself would fly.
Who knows my own heart's woes so well as I?
But how shall I steal hence? Alexis, thou,

Ah thou thyself, alas! hast taught me how.
Love too, that leads the way, would lend the wings
To bear me harmless through the hardest things
And where Love lends the wing, and leads the way,
What dangers can there be dare say me nay?
If I be shipwreck'd, Love shall teach to swim ;
If drown'd, sweet is the death endured for him ;
The noted sea shall change his name with me;
I'mongst the blest stars a new name shall be ;

And sure where lovers make their wat❜ry graves,
The weeping mariner will augment the waves.
For who so hard, but passing by that way
Will take acquaintance of my woes, and say,

'Here 't was the Roman maid found a hard fate,

While through the World she sought her wand'ring mate ; Here perish'd she, poor heart; Heavens, be my vows

As true to me as she was to her spouse.

O live, so rare a love! live! and in thee

The too frail life of female constancy.

Farewell; and shine, fair soul, shine there above,

Firm in thy crown, as here fast in thy love.
There thy lost fugitive thou hast found at last :
Be happy; and for ever hold him fast.'

THE SECOND ELEGY.

Though all the joys I had fled hence with thee,
Unkind! yet are my tears still true to me:
I'm wedded o'er again since thou art gone,
Nor couldst thou, cruel, leave me quite alone.
Alexis' widow now is Sorrow's wife ;

With him shall I weep out my weary life.
Welcome, my sad-sweet mate! Now have I got
At last a constant Love, that leaves me not:
Firm he, as thou art false; nor need my cries
Thus vex the Earth and tear the beauteous skies.
For him, alas! ne'er shall I need to be

Troublesome to the world, thus, as for thee:

For thee I talk to trees; with silent groves
Expostulate my woes and much wrong'd loves;
Hills and relentless rocks, or if there be

Things that in hardness more allude to thee,
To these I talk in tears, and tell my pain,
And answer too for them in tears again.
How oft have I wept out the weary sun!
My wat'ry hour-glass hath old Time outrun.
O I am learned grown: poor Love and I
Have studied over all Astrology;

I'm perfect in Heaven's state, with every star
My skilful grief is grown familiar.

Rise, fairest of those fires; whate'er thou be
Whose rosy beam shall point my sun to me,
Such as the sacred light that erst did bring
The Eastern princes to their infant King.
O rise, pure lamp, and lend thy golden ray,
That weary Love at last may find his way.

THE THIRD ELEGY.

Rich, churlish Land, that hid'st so long in thee
My treasures; rich, alas, by robbing me.
Needs must my miseries owe that man a spite,
Whoe'er he be, was the first wand'ring knight.

O had he ne'er been at that cruel cost
Nature's virginity had ne'er been lost;
Seas had not been rebuked by saucy oars,
But lain lock'd up safe in their sacred shores;

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