Nymph.
Thy prayer is heard: learn now t’esteem
The kindness she hath shown,
Who, thy lost freedom to redeem,35
Hath forfeited her own.
To the Countess of S[underland?] with the Holy Court.[1:1]
Since every place you bless, the name
This book assumes may justlier claim.
(What more a court than where you shine?
And where your soul, what more divine?)
You may perhaps doubt at first sight5
That it usurps upon your right;
And praising virtues that belong
To you, in others, doth you wrong.
No, ’tis yourself you read, in all
Perfections earlier ages call10
Their own; all glories they e’er knew
Were but faint prophecies of you.
You then have here sole interest, whom ’tis meant
As well to entertain, as represent.
Drawn For Valentine by the L[ady] D[orothy] S[pencer?].[2:1]
Though ’gainst me Love and Destiny conspire,
Though I must waste in an unpitied fire,
By the same deity, severe as fair,
Commanded adoration and despair;
Though I am mark’d for sacrifice, to tell5
The growing age what dangerous glories dwell
In this bright dawn, who, when she spreads her rays,
Will challenge every heart, and every praise;
Yet she who to all hope forbids my claim,
By Fortune’s taught indulgence to my flame,10
Great Queen of Chance! unjustly we exclude
Thy power an interest in beatitude,
Who with mysterious judgement dost dispense
The bounties of unerring Providence;
Whilst we, to whom the causes are unknown,15
Would style that blindness thine, which is our own.
As kind, in justice to thyself, as me,
Thou hast redeem’d thy name and votary:
Nor will I prize this less for being thine,
Nor longer at my destiny repine.20
Counsel and choice are things below thy state:
Fortune relieves the cruelties of Fate.