Canto XLVII

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.