Marriage

O THINK not, sweet, to what wild end

  Thy love soe'er is bent,

Thou canst that breast of sighs commend

  To more relinquishment.

To fuller licence canst commit

  Than knew'st thou this long while,

Since once the yielding heart of it

  Was flagrant in a smile,

Since once, when truest modesty

  Itself no more mistook,

Thy spirit's passion, shaken free.

  So triumphed in one look,

That never can surrender new

  More openness imply,

And all thou canst for ever do

  Shall that but ratify.

Charles Williams

Poems of Conformity (OUP 1917)