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, ARDON, that with slow gladness we so late Your wished return of health congratulate; Our joys at first so thronged to get abroad, They hindered one another in the crowd; And now such haste to tell their message make, They only stammer what they meant to speak. You, the fair subject which I am to sing, To whose kind hands this humble joy I bring, Aid me, I beg, while I this theme pursue, For I invoke no other muse but you. Long time had you here brightly shone below, With all the rays kind Heaven could bestow; No envious cloud e'er offered to invade Your lustre, or compel it to a shade; Nor did it yet by any sign appear, But that you throughout immortal were; Till Heaven (if Heaven could prove so cruel,) sent To interrupt the growth of your content, As if it grudged those gifts you did enjoy, And would that bounty, which it gave, destroy. 'Twas since your excellence did envy move In those high powers, and made them jealous prove, They thought these glories, should they still have shined Unsullied, were too much for woman-kind; Which might they write as lasting as they're fair, Too great for aught but deities appear. But Heaven, it may be, was not yet complete, And lacked you there to fill your empty seat; And when it could not fairly woo you hence, Turned ravisher, and offered violence. Sickness did first a formal siege begin, And by sure slowness tried your life to win,