086 SIR JOHN DA VIES

Sith then her heavenly kind she doth bewray,
In that to God she doth directly move
And on no mortal thing can make her stay,
She cannot be from hence, but from above.

And yet this First True Cause and Last Good End

She cannot here so well and truly see:
For this perfection she must yet attend
Till to her Maker she espoused be.

As a king's daughter, being in person sought
Of divers princes who do neighbour near,
On none of them can fix a constant thought,
Though she to all do lend a gentle ear,

Yet she can love a foreign emperor,

Whom of great worth and power she hears to be,

If she be woo'd but by ambassador,

Or but his letters or his pictures see,

For well she knows that when she shall be brought
Into the kingdom where her spouse doth reign
Her eyes shall see what she conceiv'd in thought,
Himself, his state, his glory, and his train:

So, while the virgin Soul on earth doth stay,

She woo*d and tempted is ten thousand ways

By these great powers which on the Earth bear sway

The wisdom of the World, wealth, pleasure, praise.

With these sometime she doth her time beguile,
These do by fits her Fantasy possess;
But she distastes them all within a while,
And in the sweetest finds a tediousness.

But if upon the World's Almighty King
She once do fix her humble loving thought,
Who by His picture, drawn in everything,
And sacred messages her love hath sought,

Of Him she thinks she cannot think too much;
This honey, tasted still, is ever sweet;
The pleasure of her ravisht thought is such
As almost here she with her bliss doth meet: