VII. TO THE BODY.

Creation's and Creator's crowning good; Wall of infinitude; Foundation of the sky, In Heaven forecast

And long'd for from eternity, Though laid the last; Reverberating dome, Of music cunningly built home

Against the void and indolent disgrace Of unresponsive space; Little, sequester'd pleasure-house For God and for His Spouse;

Elaborately, yea, past conceiving, fair, Since, from the graced decorum of the hair, Ev'n to the tingling, sweet Soles of the simple, earth-confiding feet,

And from the inmost heart Outwards unto the thin Silk curtains of the skin, Every least part

Astonish'd hears And sweet replies to some like region of the spheres; Form'd for a dignity prophets but darkly name, Lest shameless men cry‘ Shame!’

So rich with wealth conceal'd That Heaven and Hell fight chiefly for this field; Clinging to everything that pleases thee With indefectible fidelity;

Alas, so true To all thy friendships that no grace Thee from thy sin can wholly disembrace; Which thus‘ bides with thee as the Jebusite,

That, maugre all God's promises could do, The chosen People never conquer'd quite; Who therefore lived with them, And that by formal truce and as of right,

In metropolitan Jerusalem. For which false fealty Thou needs must, for a season, lie In the grave's arms, foul and unshriven,

Albeit, in Heaven, Thy crimson-throbbing Glow Into its old abode aye pants to go, And does with envy see

Enoch, Elijah, and the Lady, she Who left the roses in her body's lieu. O, if the pleasures I have known in thee But my poor faith's poor first-fruits be,

What quintessential, keen, ethereal bliss Then shall be his Who has thy birth-time's consecrating dew For death's sweet chrism retain'd,

Quick, tender, virginal, and unprofaned!