So dear to Heaven 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.
The Way of Heaven does not complete, and yet it skillfully achieves victory. It does not speak, and yet it skillfully responds to things. It comes to you without your invitation.
Who ever comes to shroud me, do not harm Nor question much That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm; The mystery, the sign you must not touch, For 'tis my outward soul, Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone, Will leave this to control, And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.
Heaven forbid that we should believe in such a way as not to accept or seek reasons, since we could not even believe if we did not possess rational souls.
The impulse which directs to right conduct, and deters from crime, is not only older than the ages of nations and cities, but coeval with that Divine Being who sees and rules both heaven and earth.
Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell >From heaven; for ev'n in heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd In vision beatific.
Thus can the demigod Authority Make us pay down for our offense by weight The words of heaven; on whom it will, it will, On whom it will not, so: yet still 'tis just.
Dear to us are those who love us... but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life; they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us to new and unattempted performances.