The scattered glories of her happy sex
In her bright soul as in their centre mix:
And all that they possess but by retail,
She hers by just monopoly can call;
Whose sole example does more virtues shew,
Than schoolmen ever taught, or ever knew.
No act did e'er within her practice fall,
Which for the atonement of a blush could call:
'No word of hers e'er greeted any ear,
But what a saint at her last gasp might hear:
Scarcely her thoughts have ever sullied been
With the least print or stain of native sin:
Devout she is, as holy hermits are,
Who share their time 'twixt ecstasy and prayer;
Modest, as infant roses in their bloom,
Who in a blush their fragrant lives consume:
So chaste, the dead themselves are only more,
Who lie divorced from objects, and from power;[1]
So pure, could virtue in a shape appear,
'Twould choose to have no other form, but her;
So much a saint, I scarce dare call her so,
For fear to wrong her with a name too low:
Such the seraphic brightness of her mind,
I hardly can believe her womankind:
But think some nobler being does appear,
Which, to instruct the world, has left the sphere,
And condescends to wear a body here;
Or, if she mortal be, and meant to show
The greater art, by being formed below;
Sure Heaven preserved her, by the fall uncurst,
To tell how good the sex was made at first.
- ↑ Devout thou wast as holy hermits are,
Which share their time 'twixt ecstasy and prayer;
Modest as infant roses in their bloom,
Which in a blush their lives consume,
So chaste, the dead are only more.
Who lie divorced from objects, and from power.—Ode.
