'O then advance of yours that phraseless hand, Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise; Take all these similes to your own command, Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise; What me your minister, for you obeys, Works under you; and to your audit comes Their distract parcels in combined sums.

'Lo! this device was sent me from a nun, Or sister sanctified of holiest note; Which late her noble suit in court did shun, Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote; For she was sought by spirits of richest coat, But kept cold distance, and did thence remove To spend her living in eternal love.

'But O, my sweet, what labour is't to leave The thing we have not, mastering what not strives? Paling the place which did no form receive, Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves: She that her fame so to herself contrives, The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight, And makes her absence valiant, not her might.

'O pardon me, in that my boast is true: The accident which brought me to her eye, Upon the moment did her force subdue, And now she would the caged cloister fly: Religious love put out religion's eye: Not to be tempted, would she be immur'd, And now, to tempt all, liberty procur'd.

William Shakespeare
Classic Literature Library

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