Roses, in breathing forth their scent,
Or stars their borrowed ornament;
Nymphs in the watery sphere that move,
Or angels in their orbs above;
The winged chariot of the light,5
Or the slow silent wheels of night;
The shade which from the swifter sun
Doth in a circular motion run,
Or souls that their eternal rest do keep,
Make far more[30:2] noise than Celia’s breath in sleep.10
But if the angel which inspires
This subtle frame[30:3] with active fires,
Should mould this[30:4] breath to words, and those
Into a harmony dispose,
The music of this heavenly sphere15
Would steal each soul out at the ear,
And into plants and stones infuse
A life that cherubim[30:5] would choose,
And with new powers[30:6] invert the laws of fate:
Kill those that live, and dead things animate.20
Palinode.[31:1]
Beauty, thy harsh imperious chains
As a scorn’d weight, I here untie,
Since thy proud empire those disdains
Of reason or philosophy,
That would[31:2] within tyrannic laws5
Confine the power of each free cause.
Forc’d by the potent[31:3] influence
Of thy disdain, I back return:
Thus with those flames I do dispense
Which, though they would not light, did burn,10
And rather will through cold expire,
Than languish at[31:4] a frozen fire.
But whilst I the insulting pride
Of thy vain beauty do despise,
Who gladly wouldst be deified15
By making me thy sacrifice,
May Love thy heart which to his charm
Approach’d, seem’d cold, at distance warm!
The Return.
Beauty, whose soft magnetic chains
Nor time nor absence can untie,[32:1]
Thy power the narrow bound[32:2] disdains
Of Nature or Philosophy;
Thou[32:3] canst by unconfined laws5
A motion, though at distance, cause.