XLVIII.
             
        If these brief lays, of Sorrow born,
            Were taken to be such as closed
            Grave doubts and answers here proposed,
        Then these were such as men might scorn:

        Her care is not to part and prove;
            She takes, when harsher moods remit,
            What slender shade of doubt may flit,
        And makes it vassal unto love:

        And hence, indeed, she sports with words,
            But better serves a wholesome law,
            And holds it sin and shame to draw
        The deepest measure from the chords:

        Nor dare she trust a larger lay,
            But rather loosens from the lip
            Short swallow-flights of song, that dip
        Their wings in tears, and skim away.