Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint.

Virtue, Which Breaks Through Opposition And All Temptation Can Remove, Most Shines, And Most Is Acceptable Above.

But When Lust By Unchaste Looks, Loose Gestures, And Foul Talk, But Most By Lewd And Lavish Arts Of Sin, Lets In Defilement To The Inward Parts, The Soul Grows Clotted By Contagion, Imbodies And Imbrutes, Till She Quite Lose The Divine Property Of Her First Being.

Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise

Death To Life Is Crown Or Shame.

Alas! What Boots It With Uncessant Care To Tend The Homely Slighted Shepherd's Trade, And Strictly Meditate The Thankless Muse; Were It Not Better Done As Others Use, To Sport With Amaryllis In The Shade, Or With The Tangles Of Neaera's Hair? Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise (that Last Infirmity Of Noble Mind) To Scorn Delights, And Live Laborious Days; But The Fair Guerdon When We Hope To Find, And Think To Burst Out Into Sudden Blaze, Comes The Blind Fury With Th'abhorred Shears, And Slits The Thin-spun Life.