From Fancy's earth, passing all number's bound,
Passing all guess, whence into me should fly
So mazed a mass; or, if in me it grows,
A simple soul should breed so mixed woes.

II.

The Bruertons have a lake, which, when the sun
Approaching warms, not else, dead logs up sends
From hideous depth; which tribute, when it ends,
Sore sign it is the lord's last thread is spun.

My lake is Sense, whose still streams never run
But when my sun her shining twins there bends;
Then from his depth with force in her begun,
Long drowned hopes to watery eyes it lends;
But when that fails my dead hopes up to take,
Their master is fair warned his will to make.

III.

We have a fish, by strangers much admired,
Which caught, to cruel search yields his chief part:
With gall cut out, closed up again by art,
Yet lives until his life be new required.

A stranger fish myself, not yet expired,
Tho', rapt with Beauty's hook, I did impart
Myself unto th' anatomy desired,
Instead of gall, leaving to her my heart: