Decayed by time and wars, they only prove
Their former beauty by their former love;
And now present, as ancient ladies do,
That, courted long, at length are forced to woo:
For still they look on you with such kind eyes,
As those, that see the Church's sovereign rise,
From their own order chose, in whose high state
They think themselves the second choice of fate.
When our great monarch into exile went,
Wit and religion suffered banishment.