And lasting as her flowers;
Richer than Time and, as Times’s virtue, rare;
   Sober as saddest care;
A fixed thought, an eye untaught to glance;
   Who, blest with such high chance,
Would, at suggestion of a steep desire,
   Cast himself from the spire
Of all his happiness?  But soft:  I hear
   Some vicious fool draw near,
That cries, we dream, and swears there’s no such thing,
   As this chaste love we sing. 
Peace, Luxury! thou art like one of those
   Who, being at sea, suppose,
Because they move, the continent doth so: 
   No, Vice, we let thee know
Though thy wild thoughts with sparrows’ wings do fly,
   Turtles can chastely die;
And yet (in this t’ express ourselves more clear)
   We do not number here
Such spirits as are only continent,
   Because lust’s means are spent;
Or those who doubt the common mouth of fame,
   And for their place and name,
Cannot so safely sin:  their chastity
   Is mere necessity;
Nor mean we those whom vows and conscience
   Have filled with abstinence: 
Though we acknowledge who can so abstain,
   Makes a most blessed gain;
He that for love of goodness hateth ill,
   Is more crown-worthy still
Than he, which for sin’s penalty forbears: 
   His heart sins, though he fears. 
But we propose a person like our Dove,
   Graced with a Phoenix’ love;
A beauty of that clear and sparkling light,
   Would make a day of night,
And turn the blackest sorrows to bright joys: 
   Whose odorous breath destroys
All taste of bitterness, and makes the air
   As sweet as she is fair. 
A body so harmoniously composed,
   As if nature disclosed
All her best symmetry in that one feature! 
   O, so divine a creature
Who could be false to? chiefly, when he knows
   How only she bestows
The wealthy treasure of her love on him;
   Making his fortunes swim
In the full flood of her admired perfection? 
   What savage, brute affection,
Would not be fearful to offend a dame
   Of this excelling frame? 
Much more a noble, and right generous mind,
   To virtuous moods inclined,
That knows the weight of guilt:  he will refrain
   From thoughts of such a strain,
And to his sense object this sentence ever,
   “Man may securely sin, but safely never.”

AN ELEGY

Though beauty be the mark of praise,
   And yours, of whom I sing, be such
   As not the world can praise too much,
Yet is ’t your virtue now I raise.

A virtue, like allay, so gone
   Throughout your form, as though that move,
   And draw, and conquer all men’s love,
This subjects you to love of one,

Wherein you triumph yet:  because
   ’Tis of yourself, and that you use
   The noblest freedom, not to choose
Against or faith, or honour’s laws.