Sonnet LIII: Celestial and Earthly Love

Love is not always harsh and deadly sin:
If it be love of loveliness divine,
It leaves the heart all soft and infantine
For rays of God's own grace to enter in.
Love fits the soul with wings, and bids her win
Her flight aloft nor e'er to earth decline;
'Tis the first step that leads her to the shrine
Of Him who slakes the thirst that burns within.
The love of that whereof I speak, ascends:
Woman is different far; the love of her
But ill befits a heart all manly wise.
The one love soars, the other downward tends;
The soul lights this, while that the senses stir,
And still his arrow at base quarry flies.