II.— LOVE AND HONOUR.

What man with baseness so content,

Or sick with false conceit of right,

As not to know that the element

And inmost warmth of love's delight

Is honour? Who'd not rather kiss

A duchess than a milkmaid, prank

The two in equal grace, which is

Precedent Nature's obvious rank?

Much rather, then, a woman deck'd

With saintly honours, chaste and good,

Whose thoughts celestial things affect,

Whose eyes express her heavenly mood!

Those lesser vaunts are dimm'd or lost

Which plume her name or paint her lip,

Extinct in the deep-glowing boast

Of her angelic fellowship.