That thou, the greatest of the Powers above,
Me visitest with such exceeding love. 
What thing is this? 
A God to make me, nothing, needful to his bliss,
And humbly wait my favour for a kiss! 
Yea, all thy legions of liege deity
To look into this mystery desire.’ 
   ’Content you, Dear, with them, this marvel to admire,
And lay your foolish little head to rest
On my familiar breast. 
Should a high King, leaving his arduous throne,
Sue from her hedge a little Gipsy Maid,
For far-off royal ancestry bewray’d
By some wild beauties, to herself unknown;
Some voidness of herself in her strange ways
Which to his bounteous fulness promised dainty praise;
Some power, by all but him unguess’d,
Of growing king-like were she king-caress’d;
And should he bid his dames of loftiest grade
Put off her rags and make her lowlihead
Pure for the soft midst of his perfumed bed,
So to forget, kind-couch’d with her alone,
His empire, in her winsome joyance free;
What would he do, if such a fool were she
As at his grandeur there to gape and quake,
Mindless of love’s supreme equality,
And of his heart, so simple for her sake
That all he ask’d, for making her all-blest,
Was that her nothingness alway
Should yield such easy fee as frank to play
Or sleep delighted in her Monarch’s breast,
Feeling her nothingness her giddiest boast,
As being the charm for which he loved her most? 
What if this reed,
Through which the King thought love-tunes to have blown,
Should shriek, “Indeed,
I am too base to trill so blest a tone!”
Would not the King allege
Defaulted consummation of the marriage-pledge,
And hie the Gipsy to her native hedge?’
   ’O, too much joy; O, touch of airy fire;
O, turmoil of content; O, unperturb’d desire,
From founts of spirit impell’d through brain and blood! 
I’ll not call ill what, since ’tis thine, is good,
Nor best what is but second best or third;
Still my heart fails,
And, unaccustom’d and astonish’d, quails,
And blames me, though I think I have not err’d. 
’Tis hard for fly, in such a honied flood,
To use her eyes, far more her wings or feet. 
Bitter be thy behests!

Lie like a bunch of myrrh between my aching breasts. 
Some greatly pangful penance would I brave. 
Sharpness me save
From being slain by sweet!’
   ’In your dell’d bosom’s double peace
Let all care cease! 
Custom’s joy-killing breath
Shall bid you sigh full soon for custom-killing death. 
So clasp your childish arms again around my heart: 
’Tis but in such captivity
The unbounded Heav’ns know what they be! 
And lie still there,
Till the dawn, threat’ning to declare
My beauty, which you cannot bear,
Bid me depart. 
Suffer your soul’s delight,
Lest that which is to come wither you quite: 
For these are only your espousals; yes,