| HAVING interr'd her Infant-birth, | |
| The watry ground that late did mourn, | |
| Was strew'd with flow'rs for the return | |
| Of the wish'd Bridegroom of the earth. | |
| |
| The well accorded Birds did sing | 5 |
| Their hymns unto the pleasant time, | |
| And in a sweet consorted chime | |
| Did welcom in the chearful Spring. | |
| |
| To which, soft whistles of the Wind, | |
| And warbling murmurs of a Brook, | 10 |
| And vari'd notes of leaves that shook, | |
| An harmony of parts did bind. | |
| |
| While doubling joy unto each other, | |
| All in so rare concent was shown, | |
| No happiness that came alone, | 15 |
| Nor pleasure that was not another. | |
| |
| When with a love none can express, | |
| That mutually happy pair, | |
| Melander and Celinda fair, | |
| The season with their loves did bless. | 20 |
| |
| Walking thus towards a pleasant Grove, | |
| What did, it seem'd, in new delight | |
| The pleasures of the time unite, | |
| To give a triumph to their love, | |
| |
| They stay'd at last, and on the Grass | 25 |
| Reposed so, as o'r his breast | |
| She bow'd her gracious head to rest, | |
| Such a weight as no burden was. | |
| |
| While over eithers compassed waste | |
| Their folded arms were so compos'd, | 30 |
| As if in straitest bonds inclos'd, | |
| They suffer'd for joys they did taste. | |
| |
| Long their fixt eyes to Heaven bent, | |
| Unchanged, they did never move, | |
| As if so great and pure a love | 35 |
| No Glass but it could represent. | |
| |
| When with a sweet, though troubled look, | |
| She first brake silence, saying, Dear friend, | |
| O that our love might take no end, | |
| Or never had beginning took! | 40 |
| |
| I speak not this with a false heart, | |
| (Wherewith his hand she gently strain'd) | |
| Or that would change a love maintain'd | |
| With so much faith on either part. | |
| |
| Nay, I protest, though Death with his | 45 |
| Worst Counsel should divide us here, | |
| His terrors could not make me fear, | |
| To come where your lov'd presence is. | |
| |
| Only if loves fire with the breath | |
| Of life be kindled, I doubt, | 50 |
| With our last air 'twill be breath'd out, | |
| And quenched with the cold of death. | |
| |
| That if affection be a line, | |
| Which is clos'd up in our last hour; | |
| Oh how 'twould grieve me, any pow'r | 55 |
| Could force so dear a love as mine | |
| |
| She scarce had done, when his shut eyes | |
| An inward joy did represent, | |
| To hear Celinda thus intent | |
| To a love he so much did prize. | 60 |
| |
| Then with a look, it seem'd, deny'd | |
| All earthly pow'r but hers, yet so, | |
| As if to her breath he did ow | |
| This borrow'd life, he thus repli'd; | |
| |
| O you, wherein, they say, Souls rest, | 65 |
| Till they descend pure heavenly fires, | |
| Shall lustful and corrupt desires | |
| With your immortal seed be blest? | |
| |
| And shall our Love, so far beyond | |
| That low and dying appetite, | 70 |
| And which so chast desires unite, | |
| Not hold in an eternal bond? | |
| |
| Is it, because we should decline, | |
| And wholly from our thoughts exclude | |
| Objects that may the sense delude, | 75 |
| And study only the Divine? | |
| |
| No sure, for if none can ascend | |
| Ev'n to the visible degree | |
| Of things created, how should we | |
| The invisible comprehend? | 80 |
| |
| Or rather since that Pow'r exprest | |
| His greatness in his works alone, | |
| B'ing here best in his Creatures known, | |
| Why is he not lov'd in them best? | |
| |
| But is't not true, which you pretend, | 85 |
| That since our love and knowledge here, | |
| Only as parts of life appear, | |
| So they with it should take their end. | |
| |
| O no, Belov'd, I am most sure, | |
| Those vertuous habits we acquire, | 90 |
| As being with the Soul intire, | |
| Must with it evermore endure. | |
| |
| For if where sins and vice reside, | |
| We find so foul a guilt remain, | |
| As never dying in his stain, | 95 |
| Still punish'd in the Soul doth bide. | |
| |
| Much more that true and real joy, | |
| Which in a vertuous love is found, | |
| Must be more solid in its ground, | |
| Then Fate or Death can e'r destroy. | 100 |
| |
| Else should our Souls in vain elect, | |
| And vainer yet were Heavens laws, | |
| When to an everlasting Cause | |
| They gave a perishing Effect. | |
| |
| Nor here on earth then, nor above, | 105 |
| Our good affection can impair, | |
| For where God doth admit the fair, | |
| Think you that he excludeth Love? | |
| |
| These eyes again then, eyes shall see, | |
| And hands again these hands enfold, | 110 |
| And all chast pleasures can be told | |
| Shall with us everlasting be. | |
| |
| For if no use of sense remain | |
| When bodies once this life forsake, | |
| Or they could no delight partake, | 115 |
| Why should they ever rise again? | |
| |
| And if every imperfect mind | |
| Make love the end of knowledge here, | |
| How perfect will our love be, where | |
| All imperfection is refin'd? | 120 |
| |
| Let then no doubt, Celinda, touch, | |
| Much less your fairest mind invade, | |
| Were not our souls immortal made, | |
| Our equal loves can make them such. | |
| |
| So when one wing can make no way, | 125 |
| Two joyned can themselves dilate, | |
| So can two persons propagate, | |
| When singly either would decay. | |
| |
| So when from hence we shall be gone, | |
| And be no more, nor you, nor I, | 130 |
| As one anothers mystery, | |
| Each shall be both, yet both but one. | |
| |
| This said, in her up-lifted face, | |
| Her eyes which did that beauty crown, | |
| Were like two starrs, that having faln down, | 135 |
| Look up again to find their place: | |
| |
| While such a moveless silent peace | |
| Did seize on their becalmed sense, | |
| One would have thought some influence | |
| Their ravish'd spirits did possess. | 140 |
| |
