Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/491

  Unmixt with foreign filth, and undefil'd;
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

    Art she had none, yet wanted none,
      For Nature did that want supply:
    So rich in treasures of her own,
      She might our boasted stores defy:
  Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,
  That it seem'd borrowed, where 'twas only born.
  Her morals, too, were in her bosom bred,
    By great examples daily fed,
What in the best of books, her father's life, she read.
  And to be read herself she need not fear;
  Each test, and every light, her Muse will bear,
  Though Epictetus with his lamp were there.
  Even love (for love sometimes her Muse exprest)
Was but a lambent flame which play'd about her breast,
    Light as the vapours of a morning dream;
  So cold herself, whilst she such warmth exprest,
    'Twas Cupid bathing in Diana's stream. . . .

    Now all those charms, that blooming grace,
  The well-proportion'd shape, and beauteous face,
  Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
  In earth the much-lamented virgin lies.
  Not wit, nor piety could fate prevent;
  Nor was the cruel destiny content
  To finish all the murder at a blow,
  To sweep at once her life and beauty too;
  But, like a hardened felon, took a pride
    To work more mischievously slow,
    And plunder'd first, and then destroyed.
  O double sacrilege on things divine,