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.