If I were dead, and, in my place,
Some fresher youth designed
To warm thee, with new fires; and grace
Those arms I left behind:
Were he as faithful as the Sun,
That’s wedded to the Sphere;
His blood as chaste and temperate run,
As April’s mildest tear;
Or were he rich; and, with his heap
And spacious share of earth,
Could make divine affection cheap,
And court his golden birth;
For all these arts, I’d not believe
(No! though he should be thine!),
The mighty Amorist could give
So rich a heart as mine!
Fortune and beauty thou might’st find,
And greater men than I;
But my true resolved mind
They never shall come nigh.
For I not for an hour did love,
Or for a day desire,
But with my soul had from above
This endless holy fire.
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