Goodness Thinks No Ill Where No Ill

I Cannot Praise A Fugitive And Cloistered Virtue, Unexercised And Unbreathed, That Never Sallies Out And Sees Her Adversary, But Slinks Out Of The Race Where That Immortal Garland Is To Be Run For, Not Without Dust And Heat.

Meadows Trim With Daisies Pied, Shallow Brooks And Rivers Wide Towers And Battlements It Sees Bosom'd High In Tufted Trees, Where Perhaps Some Beauty Lies, The Cynosure Of Neighboring Eyes.

They Are The Troublers, They Are The Dividers Of Unity, Who Neglect And Don't Permit Others To Unite Those Dissevered Pieces Which Are Yet Wanting To The Body Of Truth.

Virtue That Wavers Is Not Virtue, But Vice Revolted From Itself, And After A While Returning. The Actions Of Just And Pious Men Do Not Darken In Their Middle Course.

Alas! What Boots It With Uncessant Care To Tend The Homely Slighted Shepherd's Trade, And Strictly Meditate The Thankless Muse; Were It Not Better Done As Others Use, To Sport With Amaryllis In The Shade, Or With The Tangles Of Neaera's Hair? Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise (that Last Infirmity Of Noble Mind) To Scorn Delights, And Live Laborious Days; But The Fair Guerdon When We Hope To Find, And Think To Burst Out Into Sudden Blaze, Comes The Blind Fury With Th'abhorred Shears, And Slits The Thin-spun Life.