| |
MADAME—
Here, where by all all saints invoked are, | |
| ’Twere too much schism to be singular, | |
| And ’gainst a practice general to war. | |
| |
| Yet turning to saints, should my humility | |
| To other saints than you directed be, | 5 |
| That were to make my schism, heresy. | |
| |
| Nor would I be a convertite so cold, | |
| As not to tell it; if this be too bold, | |
| Pardons are in this market cheaply sold, | |
| |
| Where, because faith is in too low degree, | 10 |
| I thought it some apostleship in me | |
| To speak things which by faith alone I see; | |
| |
| That is, of you, who are 1 a firmament | |
| Of virtues, where no one is grown, or spent; | |
| They’re your materials, not your ornament. | 15 |
| |
| Others, whom we call virtuous, are not so | |
| In their whole substance, but their virtues grow | |
| But in their humours, and at seasons show. | |
| |
| For when through tasteless flat humidity 2 | |
| In dough-baked men some harmlessness we see, | 20 |
| ’Tis but his phlegm that’s virtuous, and not he. | |
| |
| So is the blood sometimes; whoever ran | |
| To danger unimportuned, he was then | |
| No better than a sanguine virtuous man. | |
| |
| So cloistral men, who, in pretence of fear, | 25 |
| All contributions to this life forbear, | |
| Have virtue in melancholy, and only there. | |
| |
| Spiritual choleric critics, which in all | |
| Religions find faults, and forgive no fall, | |
| Have through their zeal 3 virtue but in their gall. | 30 |
| |
| We’re thus but parcel-gilt; to gold we’re grown | |
| When virtue is our soul’s complexion; | |
| Who knows his virtue’s name or place, hath none. | |
| |
| Virtue ’s but aguish, when ’tis several, | |
| By occasion waked, and circumstantial; | 35 |
| True virtue ’s soul, always in all deeds all. | |
| |
| This virtue, thinking to give dignity | |
| To your soul, found there no infirmity, | |
| For your soul was as good virtue as she. | |
| |
| She therefore wrought upon that part of you | 40 |
| Which is scarce less than soul, as she could do; | |
| And so hath made your beauty, virtue too. | |
| |
| Hence comes it that your beauty wounds not hearts, | |
| As others, with profane and sensual darts; | |
| But as an influence, virtuous thoughts imparts. | 45 |
| |
| But if such friends by th’ honour of your sight | |
| Grow capable of this so great a light, | |
| As to partake your virtues and their might; | |
| |
| What must I think that influence must do, | |
| Where it finds sympathy and matter too, | 50 |
| Virtue, and beauty of the same stuff, as you? | |
| |
| Which is, your noble worthy sister; she | |
| Of whom, if what in this my ecstasy | |
| And revelation of you both I see, | |
| |
| I should write here, as in short galleries | 55 |
| The master at the end large glasses ties, | |
| So to present the room twice to our eyes, | |
| |
| So I should give this letter length, and say | |
| That which I said of you; there is no way | |
| From either, but by th’ other, 4 not to stray. | 60 |
| |
| May therefore this be enough to testify | |
| My true devotion, free from flattery; | |
| He that believes himself, doth never lie. | |
