And Therefore, — Since I Cannot Prove

The Poet's Eye, In A Fine Frenzy Rolling, Doth Glance From Heaven To Earth, From Earth To Heaven; And As Imagination Bodies Forth The Forms Of Things Unknown, The Poet's Pen Turns Them To Shape, And Gives To Airy Nothing A Local Habitation And A Name; Such Tricks Hath Strong Imagination.

So May The Outward Shows Be Least Themselves: The World Is Still Deceived With Ornament. In Law, What Plea So Tainted And Corrupt, But, Being Seasoned With A Gracious Voice, Obscures The Show Of Evil? In Religion, What Damned Error, But Some Sober Brow Will Bless It And Approve It With A Text, Hiding The Grossness With Fair Ornament? There Is No Vice So Simple But Assumes Some Mark Of Virtue On His Outward Parts.

What Freezings I Have Felt, What Dark Days Seen, What Old December's Bareness Everywhere!

And In Some Perfumes There Is More Delight Than In The Breath That From My Mistress Reeks. I Love To Hear Her Speak, Yet Well I Know That Music Hath A Far More Pleasing Sound.

This Thing Of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine.