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But hence virgins all beware ;
Last night he with Phlogis slept,
This night for Dorinda kept,
And but rid to take the air.

xxvn.
Yet he does himself excuse;
Nor indeed without a cause :
For, according to the laws,
Why did Chloe once refuse ?



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OF MARVELL. 71



THE DEFINITION OF LOVE.

I.
My Love is of a birth as rare
As *iisy for object, strange and high ;
It was begotten by despair,
Upon impossibility.

n.
Magnanimous despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing.
Where feeble hope could ne'er have flown,
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.

III.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed ;
But fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt

IV.

For fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close ;
Their union would her ruin be.
And her tyrannic jwwer depose.



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72 THE POEMS



V.
And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole world on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embraced,

VI.

Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear.
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.

VII.

As lines, so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet :
But ours, so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.

vin.
Tlierefore the love which us doth bind.
But fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.



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OF MABYELL. 73



THE PICTURE OF T. C. IN A PROSPECT
OP FLOWERS.

I.
See with what simplicity
This nymph begins her golden days I
In the green grass she loves to He,
And there with her fair aspect tames
The wilder flowers and gives them names,
But only with the roses plays,

And them does tell
What colours best become them and what smelL

II.

Who can foretell for what high cause,
This darling of the Gods was bom ?
Yet this is she whose chaster laws
The wanton Love shall one day fear,
And, under her command severe,
See his bow broke, and ensigns torn.