COMUS
37
That wise Minerva wore, unconquer’d Virgin,
Wherwith she freez’d her foes to congeal’d stone,
But rigid looks of Chast austerity,
And noble grace that dash’t brute violence
With sudden adoration, and blank aw?
So dear to Heav’n is Saintly chastity,
That, when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried Angels lacky her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in cleer dream, and solemn vision,
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,
Till oft convers with heav’nly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th’outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turns it by degrees to the souls essence,
Till all be made immortal. But, when lust
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by leud and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite loose
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in Charnell vaults and Sepulchers
Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave,
Wherwith she freez’d her foes to congeal’d stone,
But rigid looks of Chast austerity,
And noble grace that dash’t brute violence
With sudden adoration, and blank aw?
So dear to Heav’n is Saintly chastity,
That, when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried Angels lacky her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in cleer dream, and solemn vision,
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,
Till oft convers with heav’nly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th’outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,
And turns it by degrees to the souls essence,
Till all be made immortal. But, when lust
By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by leud and lavish act of sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite loose
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp
Oft seen in Charnell vaults and Sepulchers
Lingering, and sitting by a new made grave,
