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With this confirm'd, she vow'd to banish quite
All thought of any check to her delight:
And in contempt of silly bashfulness,
She would the faith of her desires profess:
Where her religion should be policy,—
To follow love with zeal her piety:
Her chamber her cathedral church should be,
And her Leander her chief deity!
For in her love these did the gods forego;
And though her knowledge did not teach her so,
Yet did it teach her this, that what her heart
Did greatest hold in her self greatest part,
That she did make her god; and 'twas less naught
To leave gods in profession and in thought,
Than in her love and life: for therein lies
Most of her duties, and their dignities;
And rail the brain-bald world at what it will,
That's the grand atheism that reigns in it still!—
Yet singularity she would use no more,
For she was singular too much before;
But she would please the world with fair pretext;
Love would not leave her conscience perplext.
Great men, that will have less do for them still,
Must bear them out, though th' acts be ne'er so ill.