II.
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Tis truth (although this truth’s a starToo deep-enskied for all to see),As poets of grammar, lovers areThe fountains of morality. Child, would you shun the vulgar doom,In love disgust, in death despair?Know, death must come and love must come,And so for each your soul prepare. Who pleasure follows pleasure slays;God’s wrath upon himself he wreaks;But all delights rejoice his daysWho takes with thanks, and never seeks. The wrong is made and measured byThe right’s inverted dignity.Change love to shame, as love is highSo low in hell your bed shall be. How easy to keep free from sin!How hard that freedom to recall!For dreadful truth it is that menForget the heavens from which they fall. Lest sacred love your soul ensnare,With pious fancy still infer‘How loving and how lovely fairMust He be who has fashion’d her!’ Become whatever good you see,Nor sigh if, forthwith, fades from viewThe grace of which you may not beThe subject and spectator too. Love’s perfect blossom only blowsWhere noble manners veil defectAngels maybe familiar; thoseWho err each other must respect. Love blabb’d of is a great decline;A careless word unsanctions sense;But he who casts Heaven’s truth to swineConsummates all incontinence. Not to unveil before the gazeOf an imperfect sympathyIn aught we are, is the sweet praiseAnd the main sum of modesty.
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