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24 Castara walking"—usher in the pastoral phase of their romance. Under the "kinde shadow" of some friendly tree, or on the banks of the "courteous Thames," the old vows were once more repeated. And love had grown strong and brave during those months of probation—far too strong to fear what the hand of man could do. The young lovers had passed their Purgatory, and now at last the gates of Paradise were yielding before them.

Habington wrote in the climax of his great joy. A touch of the unearthly, a certain kinship with the angels, tempered his most ardent moments: and it is this spiritual element, more than any other, which has separated his songs from the somewhat "madding crowd" of Cupid's votaries.

The marriage of the poet and his Castara was celebrated some time between 1630 and 1633—one cannot be certain of the exact date. And that it was an ideal one, the second part of the poem testifies. It would seem that Lord Powis was to the last unyielding, for one of the finest of these compositions implores his parental blessing as the one thing needful to their happiness:

declares the intrepid bridegroom. And surely the most obdurate of fathers could scarcely be unmoved by such a plea, ending as it does with the assurance: