ODE 6.
[Love's Conquest.]
Er 't granted me to choose,
How I would end my days,
Since I this life must lose;
It should be in your praise:
For there are no Bays
Can be set above You.
S'impossibly I love You;
And for You sit so high
(Whence none may remove You)
In my clear Poesy,
That I oft deny
You so ample merit.
The freedom of my spirit
Maintaining, still, my cause;
Your sex not to inherit,
Urging the Salic Laws:
But your virtue draws
From me every due.
Thus still You me pursue,
That nowhere I can dwell;
By fear made just to You,
Who naturally rebel;
Of You that excel
That should I still endite.
Yet will You want some rite.
That lost in your high praise,
I wander to and fro;
As seeing sundry ways:
Yet which the right not know
To get out of this Maze.