Mundi et Cordis :: :: University of Virginia Library

When I do hear my Love's most holy name
Blasphemed by vulgar and degenerate lips,
My heart is moved with a pious shame
That words profane should heavenliest shrines eclipse:
Then burn I with a votary's indignation;
And, with the fervour of my faith elate,
Would force those ministers of desecration
With blood my deity propitiate!
Yet would a stream so foul pollute her altar,
Where love is sole-accepted sacrifice;
Therefore my hand refrains, my speech doth falter;
I leave them to the curse of their device:
Who worships spirit needs not war, indeed,
On dull idolaters, to prove his creed.