To Alexis, On his saying, I lov’d a Man that talk’d much.

Alexis, since you’l have it so I grant I am impertinent. And till this moment did not know Thrô all my life what ‘twas I ment; 5 Your kind opinion was th’ unflattering Glass, In which my mind found how deform’d it was. In your clear sense which knows no art, I saw the error of my Soul; And all the feebless of my heart, 10 With one reflection you controul, Kind as a God, and gently you chastise, By what you hate, you teach me to be wise. Impertinence, my sexes shame, (Which has so long my life persu’d,) 15 You with such modesty reclaim As all the Woman has subdu’d. To so divine a power what must I owe, That renders me so like the perfect — you? That conversable thing I hate 20 Already with a just disdain, Who Prid[e]s himself upon his prate And is of word, (that Nonsense,) vain; When in your few appears such excellence, They have reproacht, and charm’d me into sense. 25 For ever may I listning sit, Thô but each hour a word be born: I wou’d attend the coming wit, And bless what can so well inform: Let the dull World henceforth to words be damn’d, 30 I’m into nobler sense than talking sham’d.