Classic Poem

You liuing powers, enclos'd in stately shrine
Of growing trees; you rurall Gods that wield
Your scepters here, if to your eares diuine
A voice may come, which troubled soule doth yeeld;
This vow receiue, this vow, O Gods, maintaine, —
My virgin life no spotted thought shall staine.
Thou purest stone, whose purenesse doth present
My purest mind, — whose temper hard doth show
My tempred hart, — by thee my promise sent
Vnto my selfe let after-liuers know.
No fancy mine, nor others' wrong-suspect
Make me, O vertuous Shame, thy lawes neglect.
O Chastity, the chiefe of heauenly lights,
Which makst us most immortall shape to weare,
Hold thou my heart, establish thou my sprights:
To onely thee my constant course I beare,
Till spotlesse soule vnto thy bosome flie.
Such life to leade, such death I vow to die.