Sure ’twas his modesty. He might have thriven
Much better possibly, had his ambition
Been greater much. They oftimes take more pains
Who look for Pins, than those who find out Stars.
Innocence vindicated at last.
Heav’n may awhile correct the virtuous;
Yet it will wipe their eyes again, and make
Their faces whiter with their tears. Innocence
Conceal’d is the Stoln Pleasure of the Gods,
Which never ends in shame, as that of Men
Doth oftimes do; but like the Sun breaks forth,
When it hath gratified another world;
And to our unexpecting eyes appears
More glorious thro’ its late obscurity.
Dying for a Beloved Person.
There is a gust in Death, when ’tis for Love,
That’s more than all that’s taste in all the world.
For the true measure of true Love is Death;
And what falls short of this, was never Love:
And therefore when those tides do meet and strive
And both swell high, but Love is higher still,
This is the truest satisfaction of
The perfectest Love: for here it sees itself
Indure the highest test; and then it feels
The sum of delectation, since it now
Attains its perfect end; and shows its object,
By one intense act, all its verity:
Which by a thousand and ten thousand words
It would have took a poor dilated pleasure
To have imperfectly express’d.
Urania makes a mock assignation with the King, and substitutes the Queen in her place. The King describes the supposed meeting to the Confident, whom he had employed to solicit for his guilty passion.
Pyrrhus, I’ll tell thee all. When now the night
Grew black enough to hide a sculking action;
And Heav’n had ne’er an eye unshut to see
Her Representative on Earth creep ’mongst
Those poor defenceless worms, whom Nature left
An humble prey to every thing, and no
Asylum but the dark; I softly stole
To yonder grotto thro’ the upper walks,
And there found my Urania. But I found her,
I found her, Pyrrhus, not a Mistress, but
A Goddess rather; which made me now to be
No more her Lover, but Idolater.
She only whisper’d to me, as she promised,
Yet never heard I any voice so loud;
And, tho’ her words were gentler far than those
That holy priests do speak to dying Saints,
Yet never thunder signified so much.
And (what did more impress whate’er she said)
Methought her whispers were my injured Queen’s,
Her manner just like her’s! and when she urged,
Among a thousand things, the injury
I did the faithful’st Princess in the world;
Who now supposed me sick, and was perchance
Upon her knees offering up holy vows
For him who mock’d both Heav’n and her, and was
Now breaking of that vow he made her, when
With sacrifice he call’d the Gods to witness:
When she urged this, and wept, and spake so like
My poor deluded Queen, Pyrrhus, I trembled;
Almost persuaded that it was her angel
Spake thro’ Urania’s lips, who for her sake
Took care of me, as something she much loved.
It would be long to tell thee all she said,
How oft she sigh’d, how bitterly she wept:
But the effect—Urania still is chaste;
And with her chaster lips hath promised to
Invoke blest Heav’n for my intended sin.