LAURA'S VIRTUOUS DENIALS PROVED HIS SALVATION

O sweet severity, repulses sweet,
Filled with chaste love, with fervent pity filled;
O delicate admonitions that so stilled
The breast distraught, instructed the mad heat;
O gentle speech where joyously would meet
The thought that purged, the courtesy that thrilled;
O flower of virtue, fountain that overspilled
With splendour, food for the sick soul to eat;
Divine regard whose glance beatified,
In flame of pure pride terrible to resist
The sanguine passions that forget their pride,
Then swift to raise the spirit's feeble wrist:
These, beautiful in every change, supplied
Strength to my soul that else had groped in mist!