poems

	SONNETS



TO THE ONLY BEGETTER OF
THESE INSUING SONNETS
MR W H ALL HAPPINESS
AND THAT ETERNITY
PROMISED BY
OUR EVERLIVING POET WISHETH
THE WELLWISHING
ADVENTURER IN
SETTING FORTH
T T


I

FROM fairest creatures we desire increase
That thereby beautys rose might never die
But as the riper should by time decease
His tender heir might bear his memory
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes
Feedst thy lightst flame with selfsubstantial fuel
Making a famine where abundance lies
Thyself thy foe to thy sweet self too cruel
Thou that art now the worlds fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And tender churl makest waste in niggarding
  Pity the world or else this glutton be
  To eat the worlds due by the grave and thee

II

When forty winters shall beseige thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beautys field
Thy youths proud livery so gazed on now
Will be a tatterd weed of small worth held
Then being askd where all thy beauty lies
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days
To say within thine own deepsunken eyes
Were an alleating shame and thriftless praise
How much more praise deserved thy beautys use
If thou couldst answer This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse
Proving his beauty by succession thine
  This were to be new made when thou art old
  And see thy blood warm when thou feelst it cold

III

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest
Thou dost beguile the world unbless some mother
For where is she so fair whose uneard womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his selflove to stop posterity
Thou art thy mothers glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime
So thou through windows of thine age shall see
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time
  But if thou live rememberd not to be
  Die single and thine image dies with thee

IV

Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beautys legacy
Natures bequest gives nothing but doth lend
And being frank she lends to those are free
Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give
Profitless usurer why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live
For having traffic with thyself alone
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone
What acceptable audit canst thou leave
  Thy unused beauty must be tombd with thee
  Which used lives th executor to be

V

Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel
For neverresting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there
Sap chequed with frost and lusty leaves quite gone
Beauty oersnowd and bareness every where
Then were not summers distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass
Beautys effect with beauty were bereft
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was
  But flowers distilld though they with winter meet
  Leese but their show their substance still lives sweet

VI

Then let not winters ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer ere thou be distilld
Make sweet some vial treasure thou some place
With beautys treasure ere it be selfkilld
That use is not forbidden usury
Which happies those that pay the willing loan
Thats for thyself to breed another thee
Or ten times happier be it ten for one
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart
Leaving thee living in posterity
  Be not selfwilld for thou art much too fair
  To be deaths conquest and make worms thine heir

VII

Lo in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head each under eye
Doth homage to his newappearing sight
Serving with looks his sacred majesty
And having climbd the steepup heavenly hill
Resembling strong youth in his middle age
yet mortal looks adore his beauty still
Attending on his golden pilgrimage
But when from highmost pitch with weary car
Like feeble age he reeleth from the day
The eyes fore duteous now converted are
From his low tract and look another way
  So thou thyself outgoing in thy noon
  Unlookd on diest unless thou get a son

VIII

Music to hear why hearst thou music sadly
Sweets with sweets war not joy delights in joy
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly
Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy
If the true concord of welltuned sounds
By unions married do offend thine ear
They do but sweetly chide thee who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear
Mark how one string sweet husband to another
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who all in one one pleasing note do sing
  Whose speechless song being many seeming one
  Sings this to thee thou single wilt prove none

IX

Is it for fear to wet a widows eye
That thou consumest thyself in single life
Ah if thou issueless shalt hap to die
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind
When every private widow well may keep
By childrens eyes her husbands shape in mind
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place for still the world enjoys it
But beautys waste hath in the world an end
And kept unused the user so destroys it
  No love toward others in that bosom sits
  That on himself such murderous shame commits

X

For shame deny that thou bearst love to any
Who for thyself art so unprovident
Grant if thou wilt thou art beloved of many
But that thou none lovest is most evident
For thou art so possessd with murderous hate
That gainst thyself thou stickst not to conspire
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire
O change thy thought that I may change my mind
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love
Be as thy presence is gracious and kind
Or to thyself at least kindhearted prove
  Make thee another self for love of me
  That beauty still may live in thine or thee

XI

As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou growest
In one of thine from that which thou departest
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest
Herein lives wisdom beauty and increase
Without this folly age and cold decay
If all were minded so the times should cease
And threescore year would make the world away
Let those whom Nature hath not made for store
Harsh featureless and rude barrenly perish
Look whom she best endowd she gave the more
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish
  She carved thee for her seal and meant thereby
  Thou shouldst print more not let that copy die

XII

When I do count the clock that tells the time
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night
When I behold the violet past prime
And sable curls all silverd oer with white
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
And summers green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow
  And nothing gainst Times scythe can make defence
  Save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence

XIII

O that you were yourself but love you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live
Against this coming end you should prepare
And your sweet semblance to some other give
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination then you were
Yourself again after yourselfs decease
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay
Which husbandry in honour might uphold
Against the stormy gusts of winters day
And barren rage of deaths eternal cold
  O none but unthrifts Dear my love you know
  You had a father let your son say so

XIV

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck
And yet methinks I have astronomy
But not to tell of good or evil luck
Of plagues of dearths or seasons quality
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell
Pointing to each his thunder rain and wind
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive
And constant stars in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert
  Or else of thee this I prognosticate
  Thy end is truths and beautys doom and date

XV

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment
When I perceive that men as plants increase
Cheered and chequed even by the selfsame sky
Vaunt in their youthful sap at height decrease
And wear their brave state out of memory
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night
  And all in war with Time for love of you
  As he takes from you I engraft you new

XVI

But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time
And fortify yourself in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme
Now stand you on the top of happy hours
And many maiden gardens yet unset
With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers
Much liker than your painted counterfeit
So should the lines of life that life repair
Which this Times pencil or my pupil pen
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair
Can make you live yourself in eyes of men
  To give away yourself keeps yourself still
  And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill

XVII

Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filld with your most high deserts
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces
The age to come would say This poet lies
Such heavenly touches neer touchd earthly faces
So should my papers yellowd with their age
Be scornd like old men of less truth than tongue
And your true rights be termd a poets rage
And stretched metre of an antique song
  But were some child of yours alive that time
  You should live twice in it and in my rhyme

XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summers day
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
And summers lease hath all too short a date
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
And often is his gold complexion dimmd
And every fair from fair sometime declines
By chance or natures changing course untrimmd
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderst in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou growest
  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see
  So long lives this and this gives life to thee

XIX

Devouring Time blunt thou the lions paws
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tigers jaws
And burn the longlived phoenix in her blood
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets
And do whateer thou wilt swiftfooted Time
To the wide world and all her fading sweets
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime
O carve not with thy hours my loves fair brow
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beautys pattern to succeeding men
  Yet do thy worst old Time despite thy wrong
  My love shall in my verse ever live young

XX

A womans face with Natures own hand painted
Hast thou the mastermistress of my passion
A womans gentle heart but not acquainted
With shifting change as is false womens fashion
An eye more bright than theirs less false in rolling
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth
A man in hue all hues in his controlling
Much steals mens eyes and womens souls amazeth
And for a woman wert thou first created
Till Nature as she wrought thee fell adoting
And by addition me of thee defeated
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing
  But since she prickd thee out for womens pleasure
  Mine be thy love and thy loves use their treasure

XXI

So is it not with me as with that Muse
Stirrd by a painted beauty to his verse
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon with earth and seas rich gems
With Aprils firstborn flowers and all things rare
That heavens air in this huge rondure hems
O let me true in love but truly write
And then believe me my love is as fair
As any mothers child though not so bright
As those gold candles fixd in heavens air
  Let them say more than like of hearsay well
  I will not praise that purpose not to sell

XXII

My glass shall not persuade me I am old
So long as youth and thou are of one date
But when in thee times furrows I behold
Then look I death my days should expiate
For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart
Which in thy breast doth live as thine in me
How can I then be elder than thou art
O therefore love be of thyself so wary
As I not for myself but for thee will
Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill
  Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain
  Thou gavest me thine not to give back again

XXIII

As an unperfect actor on the stage
Who with his fear is put besides his part
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage
Whose strengths abundance weakens his own heart
So I for fear of trust forget to say
The perfect ceremony of loves rite
And in mine own loves strength seem to decay
Oercharged with burden of mine own loves might
O let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast
Who plead for love and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath more expressd
  O learn to read what silent love hath writ
  To hear with eyes belongs to loves fine wit

XXIV

Mine eye hath playd the painter and hath stelld
Thy beautys form in table of my heart
My body is the frame wherein tis held
And perspective it is the painters art
For through the painter must you see his skill
To find where your true image pictured lies
Which in my bosoms shop is hanging still
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape and thine for me
Are windows to my breast wherethrough the sun
Delights to peep to gaze therein on thee
  Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art
  They draw but what they see know not the heart

XXV

Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast
Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars
Unlookd for joy in that I honour most
Great princes favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the suns eye
And in themselves their pride lies buried
For at a frown they in their glory die
The painful warrior famoused for fight
After a thousand victories once foild
Is from the book of honour razed quite
And all the rest forgot for which he toild
  Then happy I that love and am beloved
  Where I may not remove nor be removed

XXVI

Lord of my love to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit
To thee I send this written embassage
To witness duty not to show my wit
Duty so great which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare in wanting words to show it
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy souls thought all naked will bestow it
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
Points on me graciously with fair aspect
And puts apparel on my tatterd loving
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect
  Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee
  Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me

XXVII

Weary with toil I haste me to my bed
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind when bodys works expired
For then my thoughts from far where I abide
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide
Looking on darkness which the blind do see
Save that my souls imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view
Which like a jewel hung in ghastly night
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new
  Lo thus by day my limbs by night my mind
  For thee and for myself no quiet find

XXVIII

How can I then return in happy plight
That am debarrd the benefit of rest
When days oppression is not eased by night
But day by night and night by day oppressd
And each though enemies to eithers reign
Do in consent shake hands to torture me
The one by toil the other to complain
How far I toil still farther off from thee
I tell the day to please them thou art bright
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven
So flatter I the swartcomplexiond night
When sparkling stars twire not thou gildst the even
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer
  And night doth nightly make griefs strength
  	seem stronger

XXIX

When in disgrace with fortune and mens eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deal heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope
Featured like him like him with friends possessd
Desiring this mans art and that mans scope
With what I most enjoy contented least
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising
Haply I think on thee and then my state
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth sings hymns at heavens gate
  For thy sweet love rememberd such wealth brings
  That then I scorn to change my state with kings

XXX

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought
And with old woes new wail my dear times waste
Then can I drown an eye unused to flow
For precious friends hid in deaths dateless night
And weep afresh loves long since cancelld woe
And moan the expense of many a vanishd sight
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone
And heavily from woe to woe tell oer
The sad account of forebemoaned moan
Which I new pay as if not paid before
  But if the while I think on thee dear friend
  All losses are restored and sorrows end

XXXI

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts
Which I by lacking have supposed dead
And there reigns love and all loves loving parts
And all those friends which I thought buried
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stoln from mine eye
As interest of the dead which now appear
But things removed that hidden in thee lie
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone
Who all their parts of me to thee did give
That due of many now is thine alone
  Their images I loved I view in thee
  And thou all they hast all the all of me

XXXII

If thou survive my wellcontented day
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover
And shalt by fortune once more resurvey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover
Compare them with the bettering of the time
And though they be outstrippd by every pen
Reserve them for my love not for their rhyme
Exceeded by the height of happier men
O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought
Had my friends Muse grown with this growing age
A dearer birth than this his love had brought
To march in ranks of better equipage
  But since he died and poets better prove
  Theirs for their style Ill read his for his love

XXXIII

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountaintops with sovereign eye
Kissing with golden face the meadows green
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face
And from the forlorn world his visage hide
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant splendor on my brow
But out alack he was but one hour mine
The region cloud hath maskd him from me now
  Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth
  Suns of the world may stain when heavens sun staineth

XXXIV

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day
And make me travel forth without my cloak
To let base clouds oertake me in my way
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke
Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break
To dry the rain on my stormbeaten face
For no man well of such a salve can speak
That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief
Though thou repent yet I have still the loss
The offenders sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offences cross
  Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds
  And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds

XXXV

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done
Roses have thorns and silver fountains mud
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud
All men make faults and even I in this
Authorizing thy trespass with compare
Myself corrupting salving thy amiss
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense
Thy adverse party is thy advocate
And gainst myself a lawful plea commence
Such civil war is in my love and hate
  That I an accessary needs must be
  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me

XXXVI

Let me confess that we two must be twain
Although our undivided loves are one
So shall those blots that do with me remain
Without thy help by me be borne alone
In our two loves there is but one respect
Though in our lives a separable spite
Which though it alter not loves sole effect
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from loves delight
I may not evermore acknowledge thee
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame
Nor thou with public kindness honour me
Unless thou take that honour from thy name
  But do not so I love thee in such sort
  As thou being mine mine is thy good report

XXXVII

As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth
So I made lame by fortunes dearest spite
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth
For whether beauty birth or wealth or wit
Or any of these all or all or more
Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit
I make my love engrafted to this store
So then I am not lame poor nor despised
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am sufficed
And by a part of all thy glory live
  Look what is best that best I wish in thee
  This wish I have then ten times happy me

XXXVIII

How can my Muse want subject to invent
While thou dost breathe that pourst into my verse
Thine own sweet argument too excellent
For every vulgar paper to rehearse
O give thyself the thanks if aught in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight
For whos so dumb that cannot write to thee
When thou thyself dost give invention light
Be thou the tenth Muse ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate
And he that calls on thee let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date
  If my slight Muse do please these curious days
  The pain be mine but thine shall be the praise

XXXIX

O how thy worth with manners may I sing
When thou art all the better part of me
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring
And what is t but mine own when I praise thee
Even for this let us divided live
And our dear love lose name of single one
That by this separation I may give
That due to thee which thou deservest alone
O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave
To entertain the time with thoughts of love
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive
  And that thou teachest how to make one twain
  By praising him here who doth hence remain

XL

Take all my loves my love yea take them all
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before
No love my love that thou mayst true love call
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more
Then if for my love thou my love receivest
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest
But yet be blamed if thou thyself deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest
I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief
Although thou steal thee all my poverty
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear loves wrong than hates known injury
  Lascivious grace in whom all ill well shows
  Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes

XLI

Those petty wrongs that liberty commits
When I am sometime absent from thy heart
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits
For still temptation follows where thou art
Gentle thou art and therefore to be won
Beauteous thou art therefore to be assailed
And when a woman woos what womans son
Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed
Ay me but yet thou mightest my seat forbear
And chide try beauty and thy straying youth
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth
  Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee
  Thine by thy beauty being false to me

XLII

That thou hast her it is not all my grief
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief
A loss in love that touches me more nearly
Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye
Thou dost love her because thou knowst I love her
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me
Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her
If I lose thee my loss is my loves gain
And losing her my friend hath found that loss
Both find each other and I lose both twain
And both for my sake lay on me this cross
  But heres the joy my friend and I are one
  Sweet flattery then she loves but me alone

XLIII

When most I wink then do mine eyes best see
For all the day they view things unrespected
But when I sleep in dreams they look on thee
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed
Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright
How would thy shadows form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so
How would I say mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay
  All days are nights to see till I see thee
  And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me

XLIV

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought
Injurious distance should not stop my way
For then despite of space I would be brought
From limits far remote where thou dost stay
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land
As soon as think the place where he would be
But ah thought kills me that I am not thought
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone
But that so much of earth and water wrought
I must attend times leisure with my moan
  Receiving nought by elements so slow
  But heavy tears badges of eithers woe

XLV

The other two slight air and purging fire
Are both with thee wherever I abide
The first my thought the other my desire
These presentabsent with swift motion slide
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee
My life being made of four with two alone
Sinks down to death oppressd with melancholy
Until lifes composition be recured
By those swift messengers returnd from thee
Who even but now come back again assured
Of thy fair health recounting it to me
  This told I joy but then no longer glad
  I send them back again and straight grow sad

XLVI

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
How to divide the conquest of thy sight
Mine eye my heart thy pictures sight would bar
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie
A closet never pierced with crystal eyes
But the defendant doth that plea deny
And says in him thy fair appearance lies
To cide this title is impanneled
A quest of thoughts all tenants to the heart
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eyes moiety and the dear hearts part
  As thus mine eyes due is thy outward part
  And my hearts right thy inward love of heart

XLVII

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took
And each doth good turns now unto the other
When that mine eye is famishd for a look
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother
With my loves picture then my eye doth feast
And to the painted banquet bids my heart
Another time mine eye is my hearts guest
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part
So either by thy picture or my love
Thyself away art resent still with me
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move
And I am still with them and they with thee
  Or if they sleep thy picture in my sight
  Awakes my heart to hearts and eyes delight

XLVIII

How careful was I when I took my way
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust
That to my use it might unused stay
From hands of falsehood in sure wards of trust
But thou to whom my jewels trifles are
Most worthy of comfort now my greatest grief
Thou best of dearest and mine only care
Art left the prey of every vulgar thief
Thee have I not lockd up in any chest
Save where thou art not though I feel thou art
Within the gentle closure of my breast
From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part
  And even thence thou wilt be stoln I fear
  For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear

XLIX

Against that time if ever that time come
When I shall see thee frown on my defects
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum
Calld to that audit by advised respects
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass
And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye
When love converted from the thing it was
Shall reasons find of settled gravity
Against that time do I ensconce me here
Within the knowledge of mine own desert
And this my hand against myself uprear
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part
  To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws
  Since why to love I can allege no cause

L

How heavy do I journey on the way
When what I seek my weary travels end
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say
Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend
The beast that bears me tired with my woe
Plods dully on to bear that weight in me
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed being made from thee
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide
Which heavily he answers with a groan
More sharp to me than spurring to his side
  For that same groan doth put this in my mind
  My grief lies onward and my joy behind

LI

Thus can my love excuse the slow offence
Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed
From where thou art why should I haste me thence
Till I return of posting is no need
O what excuse will my poor beast then find
When swift extremity can seem but slow
Then should I spur though mounted on the wind
In winged speed no motion shall I know
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace
Therefore desire of perfectst love being made
Shall neighno dull fleshin his fiery race
But love for love thus shall excuse my jade
  Since from thee going he went wilfulslow
  Towards thee Ill run and give him leave to go

LII

So am I as the rich whose blessed key
Can bring him to his sweet uplocked treasure
The which he will not every hour survey
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare
Since seldom coming in the long year set
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are
Or captain jewels in the carcanet
So is the time that keeps you as my chest
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide
To make some special instant special blest
By new unfolding his imprisond pride
  Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope
  Being had to triumph being lackd to hope

LIII

What is your substance whereof are you made
That millions of strange shadows on you tend
Since every one hath every one one shade
And you but one can every shadow lend
Describe Adonis and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you
On Helens cheek all art of beauty set
And you in Grecian tires are painted new
Speak of the spring and foison of the year
The one doth shadow of your beauty show
The other as your bounty doth appear
And you in every blessed shape we know
  In all external grace you have some part
  But you like none none you for constant heart

LIV

O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give
The rose looks fair but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live
The cankerblooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
When summers breath their masked buds discloses
But for their virtue only is their show
They live unwood and unrespected fade
Die to themselves Sweet roses do not so
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made
  And so of you beauteous and lovely youth
  When that shall fade my verse distills your truth

LV

Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeard with sluttish time
When wasteful war shall statues overturn
And broils root out the work of masonry
Nor Mars his sword nor wars quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory
Gainst death and alloblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom
  So till the judgment that yourself arise
  You live in this and dwell in lovers eyes

LVI

Sweet love renew thy force be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite
Which but today by feeding is allayd
Tomorrow sharpend in his former might
So love be thou although today thou fill
Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness
Tomorrow see again and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness
Let this sad interim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore where two contracted new
Come daily to the banks that when they see
Return of love more blest may be the view
  Else call it winter which being full of care
  Makes summers welcome thrice more wishd more rare

LVII

Being your slave what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire
I have no precious time at all to spend
Nor services to do till you require
Nor dare I chide the worldwithoutend hour
Whilst I my sovereign watch the clock for you
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be or your affairs suppose
But like a sad slave stay and think of nought
Save where you are how happy you make those
  So true a fool is love that in your will
  Though you do any thing he thinks no ill

LVIII

That god forbid that made me first your slave
I should in thought control your times of pleasure
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave
Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure
O let me suffer being at your beck
The imprisond absence of your liberty
And patience tame to sufferance bide each cheque
Without accusing you of injury
Be where you list your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of selfdoing crime
  I am to wait though waiting so be hell
  Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well

LIX

If there be nothing new but that which is
Hath been before how are our brains beguiled
Which labouring for invention bear amiss
The second burden of a former child
O that record could with a backward look
Even of five hundred courses of the sun
Show me your image in some antique book
Since mind at first in character was done
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame
Whether we are mended or whether better they
Or whether revolution be the same
  O sure I am the wits of former days
  To subjects worse have given admiring praise

LX

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore
So do our minutes hasten to their end
Each changing place with that which goes before
In sequent toil all forwards do contend
Nativity once in the main of light
Crawls to maturity wherewith being crownd
Crooked elipses gainst his glory fight
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beautys brow
Feeds on the rarities of natures truth
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow
  And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand
  Praising thy worth despite his cruel hand

LXI

Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight
Is it thy spirit that thou sendst from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry
To find out shames and idle hours in me
The scope and tenor of thy jealousy
O no thy love though much is not so great
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat
To play the watchman ever for thy sake
  For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere
  From me far off with others all too near

LXII

Sin of selflove possesseth all mine eye
And all my soul and all my every part
And for this sin there is no remedy
It is so grounded inward in my heart
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine
No shape so true no truth of such account
And for myself mine own worth do define
As I all other in all worths surmount
But when my glass shows me myself indeed
Beated and choppd with tannd antiquity
Mine own selflove quite contrary I read
Self so selfloving were iniquity
  Tis thee myself that for myself I praise
  Painting my age with beauty of thy days

LXIII

Against my love shall be as I am now
With Times injurious hand crushd and oerworn
When hours have draind his blood and filld his brow
With lines and wrinkles when his youthful morn
Hath travelld on to ages steepy night
And all those beauties whereof now hes king
Are vanishing or vanishd out of sight
Stealing away the treasure of his spring
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding ages cruel knife
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet loves beauty though my lovers life
  His beauty shall in these black lines be seen
  And they shall live and he in them still green

LXIV

When I have seen by Times fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age
When sometime lofty towers I see downrazed
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore
And the firm soil win of the watery main
Increasing store with loss and loss with store
When I have seen such interchange of state
Or state itself confounded to decay
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away
  This thought is as a death which cannot choose
  But weep to have that which it fears to lose

LXV

Since brass nor stone nor earth nor boundless sea
But sad mortality oersways their power
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea
Whose action is no stronger than a flower
O how shall summers honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days
When rocks impregnable are not so stout
Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays
O fearful meditation where alack
Shall Times best jewel from Times chest lie hid
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid
  O none unless this miracle have might
  That in black ink my love may still shine bright

LXVI

Tired with all these for restful death I cry
As to behold desert a beggar born
And needy nothing trimmd in jollity
And purest faith unhappily forsworn
And guilded honour shamefully misplaced
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tonguetied by authority
And folly doctorlike controlling skill
And simple truth miscalld simplicity
And captive good attending captain ill
  Tired with all these from these would I be gone
  Save that to die I leave my love alone

LXVII

Ah wherefore with infection should he live
And with his presence grace impiety
That sin by him advantage should achieve
And lace itself with his society
Why should false painting imitate his cheek
And steal dead seeing of his living hue
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow since his rose is true
Why should he live now Nature bankrupt is
Beggard of blood to blush through lively veins
For she hath no exchequer now but his
And proud of many lives upon his gains
  O him she stores to show what wealth she had
  In days long since before these last so bad

LXVIII

Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now
Before the bastard signs of fair were born
Or durst inhabit on a living brow
Before the golden tresses of the dead
The right of sepulchres were shorn away
To live a second life on second head
Ere beautys dead fleece made another gay
In him those holy antique hours are seen
Without all ornament itself and true
Making no summer of anothers green
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new
  And him as for a map doth Nature store
  To show false Art what beauty was of yore

LXIX

Those parts of thee that the worlds eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend
All tongues the voice of souls give thee that due
Uttering bare truth even so as foes commend
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crownd
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown
They look into the beauty of thy mind
And that in guess they measure by thy deeds
Then churls their thoughts although their eyes were kind
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds
  But why thy odour matcheth not thy show
  The solve is this that thou dost common grow

LXX

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect
For slanders mark was ever yet the fair
The ornament of beauty is suspect
A crow that flies in heavens sweetest air
So thou be good slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater being wood of time
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love
And thou presentst a pure unstained prime
Thou hast passd by the ambush of young days
Either not assaild or victor being charged
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise
To tie up envy evermore enlarged
  If some suspect of ill maskd not thy show
  Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe

LXXI

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell
Nay if you read this line remember not
The hand that writ it for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe
O if I say you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse
But let your love even with my life decay
  Lest the wise world should look into your moan
  And mock you with me after I am gone

LXXII

O lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me that you should love
After my death dear love forget me quite
For you in me can nothing worthy prove
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie
To do more for me than mine own desert
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart
O lest your true love may seem false in this
That you for love speak well of me untrue
My name be buried where my body is
And live no more to shame nor me nor you
  For I am shamed by that which I bring forth
  And so should you to love things nothing worth

LXXIII

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves or none or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold
Bare ruind choirs where late the sweet birds sang
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west
Which by and by black night doth take away
Deaths second self that seals up all in rest
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie
As the deathbed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourishd by
  This thou perceivest which makes thy love more strong
  To love that well which thou must leave ere long

LXXIV

But be contented when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away
My life hath in this line some interest
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay
When thou reviewest this thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee
The earth can have but earth which is his due
My spirit is thine the better part of me
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life
The prey of worms my body being dead
The coward conquest of a wretchs knife
Too base of thee to be remembered
  The worth of that is that which it contains
  And that is this and this with thee remains

LXXV

So are you to my thoughts as food to life
Or as sweetseasond showers are to the ground
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As twixt a miser and his wealth is found
Now proud as an enjoyer and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure
Now counting best to be with you alone
Then betterd that the world may see my pleasure
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight
And by and by clean starved for a look
Possessing or pursuing no delight
Save what is had or must from you be took
  Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day
  Or gluttoning on all or all away

LXXVI

Why is my verse so barren of new pride
So far from variation or quick change
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To newfound methods and to compounds strange
Why write I still all one ever the same
And keep invention in a noted weed
That every word doth almost tell my name
Showing their birth and where they did proceed
O know sweet love I always write of you
And you and love are still my argument
So all my best is dressing old words new
Spending again what is already spent
  For as the sun is daily new and old
  So is my love still telling what is told

LXXVII

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste
The vacant leaves thy minds imprint will bear
And of this book this learning mayst thou taste
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory
Thou by thy dials shady stealth mayst know
Times thievish progress to eternity
Look what thy memory can not contain
Commit to these waste blanks and thou shalt find
Those children nursed deliverd from thy brain
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind
  These offices so oft as thou wilt look
  Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book

LXXVIII

So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poesy disperse
Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly
Have added feathers to the learneds wing
And given grace a double majesty
Yet be most proud of that which I compile
Whose influence is thine and born of thee
In others works thou dost but mend the style
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be
  But thou art all my art and dost advance
  As high as learning my rude ignorance

LXXIX

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace
But now my gracious numbers are decayd
And my sick Muse doth give another place
I grant sweet love thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
He robs thee of and pays it thee again
He lends thee virtue and he stole that word
From thy behavior beauty doth he give
And found it in thy cheek he can afford
No praise to thee but what in thee doth live
  Then thank him not for that which he doth say
  Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay

LXXX

O how I faint when I of you do write
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name
And in the praise thereof spends all his might
To make me tonguetied speaking of your fame
But since your worth wide as the ocean is
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear
My saucy bark inferior far to his
On your broad main doth wilfully appear
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride
Or being wreckd I am a worthless boat
He of tall building and of goodly pride
  Then if he thrive and I be cast away
  The worst was this my love was my decay

LXXXI

Or I shall live your epitaph to make
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten
From hence your memory death cannot take
Although in me each part will be forgotten
Your name from hence immortal life shall have
Though I once gone to all the world must die
The earth can yield me but a common grave
When you entombed in mens eyes shall lie
Your monument shall be my gentle verse
Which eyes not yet created shall oerread
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse
When all the breathers of this world are dead
  You still shall livesuch virtue hath my pen
  Where breath most breathes even in the mouths of men

LXXXII

I grant thou wert not married to my Muse
And therefore mayst without attaint oerlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject blessing every book
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise
And therefore art enforced to seek anew
Some fresher stamp of the timebettering days
And do so love yet when they have devised
What strained touches rhetoric can lend
Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized
In true plain words by thy truetelling friend
  And their gross painting might be better used
  Where cheeks need blood in thee it is abused

LXXXIII

I never saw that you did painting need
And therefore to your fair no painting set
I found or thought I found you did exceed
The barren tender of a poets debt
And therefore have I slept in your report
That you yourself being extant well might show
How far a modern quill doth come too short
Speaking of worth what worth in you doth grow
This silence for my sin you did impute
Which shall be most my glory being dumb
For I impair not beauty being mute
When others would give life and bring a tomb
  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
  Than both your poets can in praise devise

LXXXIV

Who is it that says most which can say more
Than this rich praise that you alone are you
In whose confine immured is the store
Which should example where your equal grew
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory
But he that writes of you if he can tell
That you are you so dignifies his story
Let him but copy what in you is writ
Not making worse what nature made so clear
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit
Making his style admired every where
  You to your beauteous blessings add a curse
  Being fond on praise which makes your praises worse

LXXXV

My tonguetied Muse in manners holds her still
While comments of your praise richly compiled
Reserve their character with golden quill
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed
I think good thoughts whilst other write good words
And like unletterd clerk still cry Amen
To every hymn that able spirit affords
In polishd form of wellrefined pen
Hearing you praised I say Tis so tis true
And to the most of praise add something more
But that is in my thought whose love to you
Though words come hindmost holds his rank before
  Then others for the breath of words respect
  Me for my dumb thoughts speaking in effect

LXXXVI

Was it the proud full sail of his great verse
Bound for the prize of all too precious you
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew
Was it his spirit by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch that struck me dead
No neither he nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid my verse astonished
He nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence
As victors of my silence cannot boast
I was not sick of any fear from thence
  But when your countenance filld up his line
  Then lackd I matter that enfeebled mine

LXXXVII

Farewell thou art too dear for my possessing
And like enough thou knowst thy estimate
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing
My bonds in thee are all determinate
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting
And for that riches where is my deserving
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting
And so my patent back again is swerving
Thyself thou gavest thy own worth then not knowing
Or me to whom thou gavest it else mistaking
So thy great gift upon misprision growing
Comes home again on better judgment making
  Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter
  In sleep a king but waking no such matter

LXXXVIII

When thou shalt be disposed to set me light
And place my merit in the eye of scorn
Upon thy side against myself Ill fight
And prove thee virtuous though thou art forsworn
With mine own weakness being best acquainted
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults conceald wherein I am attainted
That thou in losing me shalt win much glory
And I by this will be a gainer too
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee
The injuries that to myself I do
Doing thee vantage doublevantage me
  Such is my love to thee I so belong
  That for thy right myself will bear all wrong

LXXXIX

Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault
And I will comment upon that offence
Speak of my lameness and I straight will halt
Against thy reasons making no defence
Thou canst not love disgrace me half so ill
To set a form upon desired change
As Ill myself disgrace knowing thy will
I will acquaintance strangle and look strange
Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell
Lest I too much profane should do it wrong
And haply of our old acquaintance tell
  For thee against myself Ill vow debate
  For I must neer love him whom thou dost hate

XC

Then hate me when thou wilt if ever now
Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross
Join with the spite of fortune make me bow
And do not drop in for an afterloss
Ah do not when my heart hath scoped this sorrow
Come in the rearward of a conquerd woe
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow
To linger out a purposed overthrow
If thou wilt leave me do not leave me last
When other petty griefs have done their spite
But in the onset come so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortunes might
  And other strains of woe which now seem woe
  Compared with loss of thee will not seem so

XCI

Some glory in their birth some in their skill
Some in their wealth some in their bodies force
Some in their garments though newfangled ill
Some in their hawks and hounds some in their horse
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest
But these particulars are not my measure
All these I better in one general best
Thy love is better than high birth to me
Richer than wealth prouder than garments cost
Of more delight than hawks or horses be
And having thee of all mens pride I boast
  Wretched in this alone that thou mayst take
  All this away and me most wretched make

XCII

But do thy worst to steal thyself away
For term of life thou art assured mine
And life no longer than thy love will stay
For it depends upon that love of thine
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs
When in the least of them my life hath end
I see a better state to me belongs
Than that which on thy humour doth depend
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie
O what a happy title do I find
Happy to have thy love happy to die
  But whats so blessedfair that fears no blot
  Thou mayst be false and yet I know it not

XCIII

So shall I live supposing thou art true
Like a deceived husband so loves face
May still seem love to me though alterd new
Thy looks with me thy heart in other place
For there can live no hatred in thine eye
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change
In manys looks the false hearts history
Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange
But heaven in thy creation did decree
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell
Whateer thy thoughts or thy hearts workings be
Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell
  How like Eves apple doth thy beauty grow
  if thy sweet virtue answer not thy show

XCIV

They that have power to hurt and will do none
That do not do the thing they most do show
Who moving others are themselves as stone
Unmoved cold and to temptation slow
They rightly do inherit heavens graces
And husband natures riches from expense
They are the lords and owners of their faces
Others but stewards of their excellence
The summers flower is to the summer sweet
Though to itself it only live and die
But if that flower with base infection meet
The basest weed outbraves his dignity
  For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds
  Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds

XCV

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which like a canker in the fragrant rose
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name
O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose
That tongue that tells the story of thy days
Making lascivious comments on thy sport
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise
Naming thy name blesses an ill report
O what a mansion have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee
Where beautys veil doth cover every blot
And all things turn to fair that eyes can see
  Take heed dear heart of this large privilege
  The hardest knife illused doth lose his edge

XCVI

Some say thy fault is youth some wantonness
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less
Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort
As on the finger of a throned queen
The basest jewel will be well esteemd
So are those errors that in thee are seen
To truths translated and for true things deemd
How many lambs might the stem wolf betray
If like a lamb he could his looks translate
How many gazers mightst thou lead away
If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state
  But do not so I love thee in such sort
  As thou being mine mine is thy good report

XCVII

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee the pleasure of the fleeting year
What freezings have I felt what dark days seen
What old Decembers bareness every where
And yet this time removed was summers time
The teeming autumn big with rich increase
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime
Like widowd wombs after their lords decease
Yet this abundant issue seemd to me
But hope of orphans and unfatherd fruit
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee
And thou away the very birds are mute
  Or if they sing tis with so dull a cheer
  That leaves look pale dreading the winters near

XCVIII

From you have I been absent in the spring
When proudpied April dressd in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing
That heavy Saturn laughd and leapd with him
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summers story tell
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew
Nor did I wonder at the lilys white
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose
They were but sweet but figures of delight
Drawn after you you pattern of all those
  Yet seemd it winter still and you away
  As with your shadow I with these did play

XCIX

The forward violet thus did I chide
Sweet thief whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells
If not from my loves breath The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my loves veins thou hast too grossly dyed
The lily I condemned for thy hand
And buds of marjoram had stoln thy hair
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand
One blushing shame another white despair
A third nor red nor white had stoln of both
And to his robbery had annexd thy breath
But for his theft in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death
  More flowers I noted yet I none could see
  But sweet or colour it had stoln from thee

C

Where art thou Muse that thou forgetst so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might
Spendst thou thy fury on some worthless song
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light
Return forgetful Muse and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time so idly spent
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument
Rise resty Muse my loves sweet face survey
If Time have any wrinkle graven there
If any be a satire to decay
And make Times spoils despised every where
  Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life
  So thou preventst his scythe and crooked knife

CI

O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed
Both truth and beauty on my love depends
So dost thou too and therein dignified
Make answer Muse wilt thou not haply say
Truth needs no colour with his colour fixd
Beauty no pencil beautys truth to lay
But best is best if never intermixd
Because he needs no praise wilt thou be dumb
Excuse not silence so fort lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be praised of ages yet to be
  Then do thy office Muse I teach thee how
  To make him seem long hence as he shows now

CII

My love is strengthend though more weak in seeming
I love not less though less the show appear
That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming
The owners tongue doth publish every where
Our love was new and then but in the spring
When I was wont to greet it with my lays
As Philomel in summers front doth sing
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night
But that wild music burthens every bough
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight
  Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue
  Because I would not dull you with my song

CIII

Alack what poverty my Muse brings forth
That having such a scope to show her pride
The argument all bare is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside
O blame me not if I no more can write
Look in your glass and there appears a face
That overgoes my blunt invention quite
Dulling my lines and doing me disgrace
Were it not sinful then striving to mend
To mar the subject that before was well
For to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell
  And more much more than in my verse can sit
  Your own glass shows you when you look in it

CIV

To me fair friend you never can be old
For as you were when first your eye I eyed
Such seems your beauty still Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers pride
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turnd
In process of the seasons have I seen
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burnd
Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green
Ah yet doth beauty like a dialhand
Steal from his figure and no pace perceived
So your sweet hue which methinks still doth stand
Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived
  For fear of which hear this thou age unbred
  Ere you were born was beautys summer dead

CV

Let not my love be calld idolatry
Nor my beloved as an idol show
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one of one still such and ever so
Kind is my love today tomorrow kind
Still constant in a wondrous excellence
Therefore my verse to constancy confined
One thing expressing leaves out difference
Fair kind and true is all my argument
Fair kind and true varying to other words
And in this change is my invention spent
Three themes in one which wondrous scope affords
  Fair kind and true have often lived alone
  Which three till now never kept seat in one

CVI

When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights
Then in the blazon of sweet beautys best
Of hand of foot of lip of eye of brow
I see their antique pen would have expressd
Even such a beauty as you master now
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time all you prefiguring
And for they lookd but with divining eyes
They had not skill enough your worth to sing
  For we which now behold these present days
  Had eyes to wonder but lack tongues to praise

CVII

Not mine own fears nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come
Can yet the lease of my true love control
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured
And the sad augurs mock their own presage
Incertainties now crown themselves assured
And peace proclaims olives of endless age
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh and death to me subscribes
Since spite of him Ill live in this poor rhyme
While he insults oer dull and speechless tribes
  And thou in this shalt find thy monument
  When tyrants crests and tombs of brass are spent

CVIII

Whats in the brain that ink may character
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit
Whats new to speak what new to register
That may express my love or thy dear merit
Nothing sweet boy but yet like prayers divine
I must each day say oer the very same
Counting no old thing old thou mine I thine
Even as when first I hallowd thy fair name
So that eternal love in loves fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place
But makes antiquity for aye his page
  Finding the first conceit of love there bred
  Where time and outward form would show it dead

CIX

O never say that I was false of heart
Though absence seemd my flame to qualify
As easy might I from myself depart
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie
That is my home of love if I have ranged
Like him that travels I return again
Just to the time not with the time exchanged
So that myself bring water for my stain
Never believe though in my nature reignd
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood
That it could so preposterously be staind
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good
  For nothing this wide universe I call
  Save thou my rose in it thou art my all

CX

Alas tis true I have gone here and there
And made myself a motley to the view
Gored mine own thoughts sold cheap what is most dear
Made old offences of affections new
Most true it is that I have lookd on truth
Askance and strangely but by all above
These blenches gave my heart another youth
And worse essays proved thee my best of love
Now all is done have what shall have no end
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof to try an older friend
A god in love to whom I am confined
  Then give me welcome next my heaven the best
  Even to thy pure and most most loving breast

CXI

O for my sake do you with Fortune chide
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in like the dyers hand
Pity me then and wish I were renewd
Whilst like a willing patient I will drink
Potions of eisel gainst my strong infection
No bitterness that I will bitter think
Nor double penance to correct correction
  Pity me then dear friend and I assure ye
  Even that your pity is enough to cure me

CXII

Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stampd upon my brow
For what care I who calls me well or ill
So you oergreen my bad my good allow
You are my all the world and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue
None else to me nor I to none alive
That my steeld sense or changes right or wrong
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others voices that my adders sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense
  You are so strongly in my purpose bred
  That all the world besides methinks are dead

CXIII

Since I left you mine eye is in my mind
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function and is partly blind
Seems seeing but effectually is out
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird of flower or shape which it doth latch
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch
For if it see the rudest or gentlest sight
The most sweet favour or deformedst creature
The mountain or the sea the day or night
The crow or dove it shapes them to your feature
  Incapable of more replete with you
  My most true mind thus makes mine eye untrue

CXIV

Or whether doth my mind being crownd with you
Drink up the monarchs plague this flattery
Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true
And that your love taught it this alchemy
To make of monsters and things indigest
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble
Creating every bad a perfect best
As fast as objects to his beams assemble
Otis the first tis flattery in my seeing
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is greeing
And to his palate doth prepare the cup
  If it be poisond tis the lesser sin
  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin

CXV

Those lines that I before have writ do lie
Even those that said I could not love you dearer
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer
But reckoning time whose milliond accidents
Creep in twixt vows and change decrees of kings
Tan sacred beauty blunt the sharpst intents
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things
Alas why fearing of times tyranny
Might I not then say Now I love you best
When I was certain oer incertainty
Crowning the present doubting of the rest
  Love is a babe then might I not say so
  To give full growth to that which still doth grow

CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove
O no it is an everfixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worths unknown although his height be taken
Loves not Times fool though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickles compass come
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
But bears it out even to the edge of doom
  If this be error and upon me proved
  I never writ nor no man ever loved

CXVII

Accuse me thus that I have scanted all
Wherein I should your great deserts repay
Forgot upon your dearest love to call
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day
That I have frequent been with unknown minds
And given to time your own dearpurchased right
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
Which should transport me farthest from your sight
Book both my wilfulness and errors down
And on just proof surmise accumulate
Bring me within the level of your frown
But shoot not at me in your wakend hate
  Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
  The constancy and virtue of your love

CXVIII

Like as to make our appetites more keen
With eager compounds we our palate urge
As to prevent our maladies unseen
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge
Even so being tuff of your neercloying sweetness
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding
And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness
To be diseased ere that there was true needing
Thus policy in love to anticipate
The ills that were not grew to faults assured
And brought to medicine a healthful state
Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured
  But thence I learn and find the lesson true
  Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you

CXIX

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears
Distilld from limbecks foul as hell within
Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears
Still losing when I saw myself to win
What wretched errors hath my heart committed
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever
O benefit of ill now I find true
That better is by evil still made better
And ruind love when it is built anew
Grows fairer than at first more strong far greater
  So I return rebuked to my content
  And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent

CXX

That you were once unkind befriends me now
And for that sorrow which I then did feel
Needs must I under my transgression bow
Unless my nerves were brass or hammerd steel
For if you were by my unkindness shaken
As I by yours youve passd a hell of time
And I a tyrant have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime
O that our night of woe might have rememberd
My deepest sense how hard true sorrow hits
And soon to you as you to me then tenderd
The humble slave which wounded bosoms fits
  But that your trespass now becomes a fee
  Mine ransoms yours and yours must ransom me

CXXI

Tis better to be vile than vile esteemd
When not to be receives reproach of being
And the just pleasure lost which is so deemd
Not by our feeling but by others seeing
For why should others false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies
Which in their wills count bad what I think good
No I am that I am and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown
  Unless this general evil they maintain
  All men are bad and in their badness reign

CXXII

Thy gift thy tables are within my brain
Full characterd with lasting memory
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date even to eternity
Or at the least so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee thy record never can be missd
That poor retention could not so much hold
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score
Therefore to give them from me was I bold
To trust those tables that receive thee more
  To keep an adjunct to remember thee
  Were to import forgetfulness in me

CXXIII

No Time thou shalt not boast that I do change
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel nothing strange
They are but dressings of a former sight
Our dates are brief and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told
Thy registers and thee I both defy
Not wondering at the present nor the past
For thy records and what we see doth lie
Made more or less by thy continual haste
  This I do vow and this shall ever be
  I will be true despite thy scythe and thee

CXXIV

If my dear love were but the child of state
It might for Fortunes bastard be unfatherd
As subject to Times love or to Times hate
Weeds among weeds or flowers with flowers gatherd
No it was builded far from accident
It suffers not in smiling pomp nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent
Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls
It fears not policy that heretic
Which works on leases of shortnumberd hours
But all alone stands hugely politic
That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with showers
  To this I witness call the fools of time
  Which die for goodness who have lived for crime

CXXV

Were t aught to me I bore the canopy
With my extern the outward honouring
Or laid great bases for eternity
Which prove more short than waste or ruining
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all and more by paying too much rent
For compound sweet forgoing simple savour
Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent
No let me be obsequious in thy heart
And take thou my oblation poor but free
Which is not mixd with seconds knows no art
But mutual render only me for thee
  Hence thou subornd informer a true soul
  When most impeachd stands least in thy control

CXXVI

O thou my lovely boy who in thy power
Dost hold Times fickle glass his sickle hour
Who hast by waning grown and therein showst
Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self growst
If Nature sovereign mistress over wrack
As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back
She keeps thee to this purpose that her skill
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill
Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure
She may detain but not still keep her treasure
  Her audit though delayd answerd must be
  And her quietus is to render thee

CXXVII

In the old age black was not counted fair
Or if it were it bore not beautys name
But now is black beautys successive heir
And beauty slanderd with a bastard shame
For since each hand hath put on natures power
Fairing the foul with arts false borrowd face
Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower
But is profaned if not lives in disgrace
Therefore my mistress brows are raven black
Her eyes so suited and they mourners seem
At such who not born fair no beauty lack
Slandering creation with a false esteem
  Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe
  That every tongue says beauty should look so

CXXVIII

How oft when thou my music music playst
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently swayst
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap
At the woods boldness by thee blushing stand
To be so tickled they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips
Oer whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait
Making dead wood more blest than living lips
  Since saucy jacks so happy are in this
  Give them thy fingers me thy lips to kiss

CXXIX

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action and till action lust
Is perjured murderous bloody full of blame
Savage extreme rude cruel not to trust
Enjoyd no sooner but despised straight
Past reason hunted and no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad
Mad in pursuit and in possession so
Had having and in quest to have extreme
A bliss in proof and proved a very woe
Before a joy proposed behind a dream
  All this the world well knows yet none knows well
  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell

CXXX

My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun
Coral is far more red than her lips red
If snow be white why then her breasts are dun
If hairs be wires black wires grow on her head
I have seen roses damaskd red and white
But no such roses see I in her cheeks
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks
I love to hear her speak yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound
I grant I never saw a goddess go
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground
  And yet by heaven I think my love as rare
  As any she belied with false compare

CXXXI

Thou art as tyrannous so as thou art
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel
For well thou knowst to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel
Yet in good faith some say that thee behold
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan
To say they err I dare not be so bold
Although I swear it to myself alone
And to be sure that is not false I swear
A thousand groans but thinking on thy face
One on anothers neck do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgments place
  In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds
  And thence this slander as I think proceeds

CXXXII

Thine eyes I love and they as pitying me
Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain
Have put on black and loving mourners be
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east
Nor that full star that ushers in the even
Doth half that glory to the sober west
As those two mourning eyes become thy face
O let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace
And suit thy pity like in every part
  Then will I swear beauty herself is black
  And all they foul that thy complexion lack

CXXXIII

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me
Ist not enough to torture me alone
But slave to slavery my sweetst friend must be
Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken
And my next self thou harder hast engrossd
Of him myself and thee I am forsaken
A torment thrice threefold thus to be crossd
Prison my heart in thy steel bosoms ward
But then my friends heart let my poor heart bail
Whoeer keeps me let my heart be his guard
Thou canst not then use rigor in my gaol
  And yet thou wilt for I being pent in thee
  Perforce am thine and all that is in me

CXXXIV

So now I have confessd that he is thine
And I myself am mortgaged to thy will
Myself Ill forfeit so that other mine
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still
But thou wilt not nor he will not be free
For thou art covetous and he is kind
He learnd but suretylike to write for me
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take
Thou usurer that putst forth all to use
And sue a friend came debtor for my sake
So him I lose through my unkind abuse
  Him have I lost thou hast both him and me
  He pays the whole and yet am I not free

CXXXV

Whoever hath her wish thou hast thy Will
And Will to boot and Will in overplus
More than enough am I that vex thee still
To thy sweet will making addition thus
Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine
Shall will in others seem right gracious
And in my will no fair acceptance shine
The sea all water yet receives rain still
And in abundance addeth to his store
So thou being rich in Will add to thy Will
One will of mine to make thy large Will more
  Let no unkind no fair beseechers kill
  Think all but one and me in that one Will

CXXXVI

If thy soul cheque thee that I come so near
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will
And will thy soul knows is admitted there
Thus far for love my lovesuit sweet fulfil
Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love
Ay fill it full with wills and my will one
In things of great receipt with ease we prove
Among a number one is reckond none
Then in the number let me pass untold
Though in thy stores account I one must be
For nothing hold me so it please thee hold
That nothing me a something sweet to thee
  Make but my name thy love and love that still
  And then thou lovest me for my name is Will

CXXXVII

Thou blind fool Love what dost thou to mine eyes
That they behold and see not what they see
They know what beauty is see where it lies
Yet what the best is take the worst to be
If eyes corrupt by overpartial looks
Be anchord in the bay where all men ride
Why of eyes falsehood hast thou forged hooks
Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied
Why should my heart think that a several plot
Which my heart knows the wide worlds common place
Or mine eyes seeing this say this is not
To put fair truth upon so foul a face
  In things right true my heart and eyes have erred
  And to this false plague are they now transferrd

CXXXVIII

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her though I know she lies
That she might think me some untutord youth
Unlearned in the worlds false subtleties
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young
Although she knows my days are past the best
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressd
But wherefore says she not she is unjust
And wherefore say not I that I am old
O loves best habit is in seeming trust
And age in love loves not to have years told
  Therefore I lie with her and she with me
  And in our faults by lies we flatterd be

CXXXIX

O call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue
Use power with power and slay me not by art
Tell me thou lovest elsewhere but in my sight
Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside
What needst thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my oerpressd defense can bide
Let me excuse thee ah my love well knows
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies
And therefore from my face she turns my foes
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries
  Yet do not so but since I am near slain
  Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain

CXL

Be wise as thou art cruel do not press
My tonguetied patience with too much disdain
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
The manner of my pitywanting pain
If I might teach thee wit better it were
Though not to love yet love to tell me so
As testy sick men when their deaths be near
No news but health from their physicians know
For if I should despair I should grow mad
And in my madness might speak ill of thee
Now this illwresting world is grown so bad
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be
  That I may not be so nor thou belied
  Bear thine eyes straight though thy proud heart go wide

CXLI

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes
For they in thee a thousand errors note
But tis my heart that loves what they despise
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote
Nor are mine ears with thy tongues tune delighted
Nor tender feeling to base touches prone
Nor taste nor smell desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee
Who leaves unswayd the likeness of a man
Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be
  Only my plague thus far I count my gain
  That she that makes me sin awards me pain

CXLII

Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate
Hate of my sin grounded on sinful loving
O but with mine compare thou thine own state
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving
Or if it do not from those lips of thine
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
And seald false bonds of love as oft as mine
Robbd others beds revenues of their rents
Be it lawful I love thee as thou lovest those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee
Root pity in thy heart that when it grows
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be
  If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide
  By selfexample mayst thou be denied

CXLIII

Lo as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her featherd creatures broke away
Sets down her babe and makes an swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face
Not prizing her poor infants discontent
So runnst thou after that which flies from thee
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind
But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me
And play the mothers part kiss me be kind
  So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will
  If thou turn back and my loud crying still

CXLIV

Two loves I have of comfort and despair
Which like two spirits do suggest me still
The better angel is a man right fair
The worser spirit a woman colourd ill
To win me soon to hell my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil
Wooing his purity with her foul pride
And whether that my angel be turnd fiend
Suspect I may but not directly tell
But being both from me both to each friend
I guess one angel in anothers hell
  Yet this shall I neer know but live in doubt
  Till my bad angel fire my good one out

CXLV

Those lips that Loves own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said I hate
To me that languishd for her sake
But when she saw my woeful state
Straight in her heart did mercy come
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom
And taught it thus anew to greet
I hate she alterd with an end
That followd it as gentle day
Doth follow night who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away
  I hate from hate away she threw
  And saved my life saying not you

CXLVI

Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth
          these rebel powers that thee array
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay
Why so large cost having so short a lease
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend
Shall worms inheritors of this excess
Eat up thy charge is this thy bodys end
Then soul live thou upon thy servants loss
And let that pine to aggravate thy store
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross
Within be fed without be rich no more
  So shalt thou feed on Death that feeds on men
  And Death once dead theres no more dying then

CXLVII

My love is as a fever longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill
The uncertain sickly appetite to please
My reason the physician to my love
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept
Hath left me and I desperate now approve
Desire is death which physic did except
Past cure I am now reason is past care
And franticmad with evermore unrest
My thoughts and my discourse as madmens are
At random from the truth vainly expressd
  For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright
  Who art as black as hell as dark as night

CXLVIII

O me what eyes hath Love put in my head
Which have no correspondence with true sight
Or if they have where is my judgment fled
That censures falsely what they see aright
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote
What means the world to say it is not so
If it be not then love doth well denote
Loves eye is not so true as all mens No
How can it O how can Loves eye be true
That is so vexd with watching and with tears
No marvel then though I mistake my view
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears
  O cunning Love with tears thou keepst me blind
  Lest eyes wellseeing thy foul faults should find

CXLIX

Canst thou O cruel say I love thee not
When I against myself with thee partake
Do I not think on thee when I forgot
Am of myself all tyrant for thy sake
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend
On whom frownst thou that I do fawn upon
Nay if thou lourst on me do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan
What merit do I in myself respect
That is so proud thy service to despise
When all my best doth worship thy defect
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes
  But love hate on for now I know thy mind
  Those that can see thou lovest and I am blind

CL

O from what power hast thou this powerful might
With insufficiency my heart to sway
To make me give the lie to my true sight
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill
That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantize of skill
That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more
The more I hear and see just cause of hate
O though I love what others do abhor
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state
  If thy unworthiness raised love in me
  More worthy I to be beloved of thee

CLI

Love is too young to know what conscience is
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love
Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove
For thou betraying me I do betray
My nobler part to my gross bodys treason
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love flesh stays no father reason
But rising at thy name doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize Proud of this pride
He is contented thy poor drudge to be
To stand in thy affairs fall by thy side
  No want of conscience hold it that I call
  Her love for whose dear love I rise and fall

CLII

In loving thee thou knowst I am forsworn
But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing
In act thy bedvow broke and new faith torn
In vowing new hate after new love bearing
But why of two oaths breach do I accuse thee
When I break twenty I am perjured most
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee
And all my honest faith in thee is lost
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness
Oaths of thy love thy truth thy constancy
And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness
Or made them swear against the thing they see
  For I have sworn thee fair more perjured I
  To swear against the truth so foul a lie

CLIII

Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep
A maid of Dians this advantage found
And his lovekindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valleyfountain of that ground
Which borrowd from this holy fire of Love
A dateless lively heat still to endure
And grew a seething bath which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure
But at my mistress eye Loves brand newfired
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast
I sick withal the help of bath desired
And thither hied a sad distemperd guest
  But found no cure the bath for my help lies
  Where Cupid got new firemy mistress eyes

CLIV

The little Lovegod lying once asleep
Laid by his side his heartinflaming brand
Whilst many nymphs that vowd chaste life to keep
Came tripping by but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warmd
And so the general of hot desire
Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmd
This brand she quenched in a cool well by
Which from Loves fire took heat perpetual
Growing a bath and healthful remedy
For men diseased but I my mistress thrall
  Came there for cure and this by that I prove
  Loves fire heats water water cools not love



	END



	VENUS AND ADONIS



Vilia miretur vulgus mihi flavus Apollo
Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua

TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY
EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AND BARON OF TICHFIELD
RIGHT HONORABLE

I KNOW not how I shall offend in dedicating my
unpolished lines to your lordship nor how the world will
censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a
burden only if your honour seem but pleased I account
myself highly praised and vow to take advantage of all idle
hours till I have honoured you with some graver labour But if
the first heir of my invention prove deformed I shall be
sorry it had so noble a godfather and never after ear so
barren a land for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest
I leave it to your honourable survey and your honour to your
hearts content which I wish may always answer your own wish
and the worlds hopeful expectation

Your honours in all duty
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE



EVEN as the sun with purplecolourd face
Had taen his last leave of the weeping morn
Rosecheekd Adonis hied him to the chase
Hunting he loved but love he laughd to scorn
Sickthoughted Venus makes amain unto him
And like a boldfaced suitor gins to woo him

Thricefairer than myself thus she began
The fields chief flower sweet above compare
Stain to all nymphs more lovely than a man
More white and red than doves or roses are
Nature that made thee with herself at strife
Saith that the world hath ending with thy life

Vouchsafe thou wonder to alight thy steed
And rein his proud head to the saddlebow
If thou wilt deign this favour for thy meed
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know
Here come and sit where never serpent hisses
And being set Ill smother thee with kisses

And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety
But rather famish them amid their plenty
Making them red and pale with fresh variety
Ten kisses short as one one long as twenty
A summers day will seem an hour but short
Being wasted in such timebeguiling sport

With this she seizeth on his sweating palm
The precedent of pith and livelihood
And trembling in her passion calls it balm
Earths sovereign salve to do a goddess good
Being so enraged desire doth lend her force
Courageously to pluck him from his horse

Over one arm the lusty coursers rein
Under her other was the tender boy
Who blushd and pouted in a dull disdain
With leaden appetite unapt to toy
She red and hot as coals of glowing fire
He red for shame but frosty in desire

The studded bridle on a ragged bough
Nimbly she fastensO how quick is love
The steed is stalled up and even now
To tie the rider she begins to prove
Backward she pushd him as she would be thrust
And governd him in strength though not in lust

So soon was she along as he was down
Each leaning on their elbows and their hips
Now doth she stroke his cheek now doth he frown
And gins to chide but soon she stops his lips
And kissing speaks with lustful language broken
If thou wilt chide thy lips shall never open

He burns with bashful shame she with her tears
Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks
Then with her windy sighs and golden hairs
To fan and blow them dry again she seeks
He saith she is immodest blames her miss
What follows more she murders with a kiss

Even as an empty eagle sharp by fast
Tires with her beak on feathers flesh and bone
Shaking her wings devouring all in haste
Till either gorge be stuffd or prey be gone
Even so she kissed his brow his cheek his chin
And where she ends she doth anew begin

Forced to content but never to obey
Panting he lies and breatheth in her face
She feedeth on the steam as on a prey
And calls it heavenly moisture air of grace
Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers
So they were dewd with such distilling showers

Look how a bird lies tangled in a net
So fastend in her arms Adonis lies
Pure shame and awed resistance made him fret
Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes
Rain added to a river that is rank
Perforce will force it overflow the bank

Still she entreats and prettily entreats
For to a pretty ear she tunes her tale
Still is he sullen still he lours and frets
Twixt crimson shame and anger ashypale
Being red she loves him best and being white
Her best is betterd with a more delight

Look how he can she cannot choose but love
And by her fair immortal hand she swears
From his soft bosom never to remove
Till he take truce with her contending tears
Which long have raind making her cheeks all wet
And one sweet kiss shall pay this countless debt

Upon this promise did he raise his chin
Like a divedapper peering through a wave
Who being lookd on ducks as quickly in
So offers he to give what she did crave
But when her lips were ready for his pay
He winks and turns his lips another way

Never did passenger in summers heat
More thirst for drink than she for this good turn
Her help she sees but help she cannot get
She bathes in water yet her fire must burn
O pity gan she cry flinthearted boy
Tis but a kiss I beg why art thou coy

I have been wood as I entreat thee now
Even by the stern and direful god of war
Whose sinewy neck in battle neer did bow
Who conquers where he comes in every jar
Yet hath he been my captive and my slave
And beggd for that which thou unaskd shalt have

Over my altars hath he hung his lance
His batterd shield his uncontrolled crest
And for my sake hath learnd to sport and dance
To toy to wanton dally smile and jest
Scorning his churlish drum and ensign red
Making my arms his field his tent my bed

Thus he that overruled I overswayd
Leading him prisoner in a redrose chain
Strongtempered steel his stronger strength obeyd
Yet was he servile to my coy disdain
O be not proud nor brag not of thy might
For mastering her that foild the god of fight

Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine
Though mine be not so fair yet are they red
The kiss shall be thine own as well as mine
What seest thou in the ground hold up thy head
Look in mine eyeballs there thy beauty lies
Then why not lips on lips since eyes in eyes
Art thou ashamed to kiss then wink again
And I will wink so shall the day seem night
Love keeps his revels where they are but twain
Be bold to play our sport is not in sight
These blueveind violets whereon we lean
Never can blab nor know not what we mean

The tender spring upon thy tempting lip
Shows thee unripe yet mayst thou well be tasted
Make use of time let not advantage slip
Beauty within itself should not be wasted
Fair flowers that are not gatherd in their prime
Rot and consume themselves in little time

Were I hardfavourd foul or wrinkledold
Illnurtured crooked churlish harsh in voice
Oerworn despised rheumatic and cold
Thicksighted barren lean and lacking juice
Then mightst thou pause for then I were not for thee
But having no defects why dost abhor me

Thou canst not see one wrinkle in my brow
Mine eyes are gray and bright and quick in turning
My beauty as the spring doth yearly grow
My flesh is soft and plump my marrow burning
My smooth moist hand were it with thy hand felt
Would in thy palm dissolve or seem to melt

Bid me discourse I will enchant thine ear
Or like a fairy trip upon the green
Or like a nymph with long dishevelld hair
Dance on the sands and yet no footing seen
Love is a spirit all compact of fire
Not gross to sink but light and will aspire

Witness this primrose bank whereon I lie
These forceless flowers like sturdy trees support me
Two strengthless doves will draw me through the sky
From morn till night even where I list to sport me
Is love so light sweet boy and may it be
That thou shouldst think it heavy unto thee

Is thine own heart to thine own face affected
Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left
Then woo thyself be of thyself rejected
Steal thine own freedom and complain on theft
Narcissus so himself himself forsook
And died to kiss his shadow in the brook

Torches are made to light jewels to wear
Dainties to taste fresh beauty for the use
Herbs for their smell and sappy plants to bear
Things growing to themselves are growths abuse
Seeds spring from seeds and beauty breedeth beauty
Thou wast begot to get it is thy duty

Upon the earths increase why shouldst thou feed
Unless the earth with thy increase be fed
By law of nature thou art bound to breed
That thine may live when thou thyself art dead
And so in spite of death thou dost survive
In that thy likeness still is left alive

By this the lovesick queen began to sweat
For where they lay the shadow had forsook them
And Titan tired in the midday heat
With burning eye did hotly overlook them
Wishing Adonis had his team to guide
So he were like him and by Venus side

And now Adonis with a lazy spright
And with a heavy dark disliking eye
His louring brows oerwhelming his fair sight
Like misty vapours when they blot the sky
Souring his cheeks cries Fie no more of love
The sun doth burn my face I must remove

Ay me quoth Venus young and so unkind
What bare excuses makest thou to be gone
Ill sigh celestial breath whose gentle wind
Shall cool the heat of this descending sun
Ill make a shadow for thee of my hairs
If they burn too Ill quench them with my tears

The sun that shines from heaven shines but warm
And lo I lie between that sun and thee
The heat I have from thence doth little harm
Thine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me
And were I not immortal life were done
Between this heavenly and earthly sun

Art thou obdurate flinty hard as steel
Nay more than flint for stone at rain relenteth
Art thou a womans son and canst not feel
What tis to love how want of love tormenteth
O had thy mother borne so hard a mind
She had not brought forth thee but died unkind

What am I that thou shouldst contemn me this
Or what great danger dwells upon my suit
What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss
Speak fair but speak fair words or else be mute
Give me one kiss Ill give it thee again
And one for interest if thou wilt have twain

Fie lifeless picture cold and senseless stone
Wellpainted idol image dun and dead
Statue contenting but the eye alone
Thing like a man but of no woman bred
Thou art no man though of a mans complexion
For men will kiss even by their own direction

This said impatience chokes her pleading tongue
And swelling passion doth provoke a pause
Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth he wrong
Being judge in love she cannot right her cause
And now she weeps and now she fain would speak
And now her sobs do her intendments break

Sometimes she shakes her head and then his hand
Now gazeth she on him now on the ground
Sometimes her arms infold him like a band
She would he will not in her arms be bound
And when from thence he struggles to be gone
She locks her lily fingers one in one

Fondling she saith since I have hemmd thee here
Within the circuit of this ivory pale
Ill be a park and thou shalt be my deer
Feed where thou wilt on mountain or in dale
Graze on my lips and if those hills be dry
Stray lower where the pleasant fountains lie

Within this limit is relief enough
Sweet bottomgrass and high delightful plain
Round rising hillocks brakes obscure and rough
To shelter thee from tempest and from rain
Then be my deer since I am such a park
No dog shall rouse thee though a thousand bark

At this Adonis smiles as in disdain
That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple
Love made those hollows if himself were slain
He might be buried in a tomb so simple
Foreknowing well if there he came to lie
Why there Love lived and there he could not die

These lovely caves these round enchanting pits
Opend their mouths to swallow Venus liking
Being mad before how doth she now for wits
Struck dead at first what needs a second striking
Poor queen of love in thine own law forlorn
To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn

Now which way shall she turn what shall she say
Her words are done her woes are more increasing
The time is spent her object will away
And from her twining arms doth urge releasing
Pity she cries some favour some remorse
Away he springs and hasteth to his horse

But lo from forth a copse that neighbors by
A breeding jennet lusty young and proud
Adonis trampling courser doth espy
And forth she rushes snorts and neighs aloud
The strongneckd steed being tied unto a tree
Breaketh his rein and to her straight goes he

Imperiously he leaps he neighs he bounds
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder
The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds
Whose hollow womb resounds like heavens thunder
The iron bit he crusheth tween his teeth
Controlling what he was controlled with

His ears upprickd his braided hanging mane
Upon his compassd crest now stand on end
His nostrils drink the air and forth again
As from a furnace vapours doth he send
His eye which scornfully glisters like fire
Shows his hot courage and his high desire

Sometime he trots as if he told the steps
With gentle majesty and modest pride
Anon he rears upright curvets and leaps
As who should say Lo thus my strength is tried
And this I do to captivate the eye
Of the fair breeder that is standing by

What recketh he his riders angry stir
His flattering Holla or his Stand I say
What cares he now for curb or pricking spur
For rich caparisons or trapping gay
He sees his love and nothing else he sees
For nothing else with his proud sight agrees

Look when a painter would surpass the life
In limning out a wellproportiond steed
His art with natures workmanship at strife
As if the dead the living should exceed
So did this horse excel a common one
In shape in courage colour pace and bone

Roundhoofd shortjointed fetlocks shag and long
Broad breast full eye small head and nostril wide
High crest short ears straight legs and passing strong
Thin mane thick tail broad buttock tender hide
Look what a horse should have he did not lack
Save a proud rider on so proud a back

Sometime he scuds far off and there he stares
Anon he starts at stirring of a feather
To bid the wind a base he now prepares
And whether he run or fly they know not whether
For through his mane and tail the high wind sings
Fanning the hairs who wave like featherd wings

He looks upon his love and neighs unto her
She answers him as if she knew his mind
Being proud as females are to see him woo her
She puts on outward strangeness seems unkind
Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels
Beating his kind embracements with her heels

Then like a melancholy malcontent
He veils his tail that like a falling plume
Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent
He stamps and bites the poor flies in his fume
His love perceiving how he is enraged
Grew kinder and his fury was assuaged

His testy master goeth about to take him
When lo the unbackd breeder full of fear
Jealous of catching swiftly doth forsake him
With her the horse and left Adonis there
As they were mad unto the wood they hie them
Outstripping crows that strive to overfly them

All swoln with chafing down Adonis sits
Banning his boisterous and unruly beast
And now the happy season once more fits
That lovesick Love by pleading may be blest
For lovers say the heart hath treble wrong
When it is barrd the aidance of the tongue

An oven that is stoppd or river stayd
Burneth more hotly swelleth with more rage
So of concealed sorrow may be said
Free vent of words loves fire doth assuage
But when the hearts attorney once is mute
The client breaks as desperate in his suit

He sees her coming and begins to glow
Even as a dying coal revives with wind
And with his bonnet hides his angry brow
Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind
Taking no notice that she is so nigh
For all askance he holds her in his eye

O what a sight it was wistly to view
How she came stealing to the wayward boy
To note the fighting conflict of her hue
How white and red each other did destroy
But now her cheek was pale and by and by
It flashd forth fire as lightning from the sky

Now was she just before him as he sat
And like a lowly lover down she kneels
With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat
Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels
His tenderer cheek receives her soft hands print
As apt as newfalln snow takes any dint

O what a war of looks was then between them
Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing
His eyes saw her eyes as they had not seen them
Her eyes wood still his eyes disdaind the wooing
And all this dumb play had his acts made plain
With tears which choruslike her eyes did rain

Full gently now she takes him by the hand
A lily prisond in a gaol of snow
Or ivory in an alabaster band
So white a friend engirts so white a foe
This beauteous combat wilful and unwilling
Showd like two silver doves that sit abilling

Once more the engine of her thoughts began
O fairest mover on this mortal round
Would thou wert as I am and I a man
My heart all whole as thine thy heart my wound
For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee
Though nothing but my bodys bane would cure thee

Give me my hand saith he why dost thou feel it
Give me my heart saith she and thou shalt have it
O give it me lest thy hard heart do steel it
And being steeld soft sighs can never grave it
Then loves deep groans I never shall regard
Because Adonis heart hath made mine hard

For shame he cries let go and let me go
My days delight is past my horse is gone
And tis your fault I am bereft him so
I pray you hence and leave me here alone
For all my mind my thought my busy care
Is how to get my palfrey from the mare

Thus she replies Thy palfrey as he should
Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire
Affection is a coal that must be coold
Else sufferd it will set the heart on fire
The sea hath bounds but deep desire hath none
Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone

How like a jade he stood tied to the tree
Servilely masterd with a leathern rein
But when he saw his love his youths fair fee
He held such petty bondage in disdain
Throwing the base thong from his bending crest
Enfranchising his mouth his back his breast

Who sees his truelove in her naked bed
Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white
But when his glutton eye so full hath fed
His other agents aim at like delight
Who is so faint that dare not be so bold
To touch the fire the weather being cold

Let me excuse thy courser gentle boy
And learn of him I heartily beseech thee
To take advantage on presented joy
Though I were dumb yet his proceedings teach thee
O learn to love the lesson is but plain
And once made perfect never lost again

I know not love quoth he nor will not know it
Unless it be a boar and then I chase it
Tis much to borrow and I will not owe it
My love to love is love but to disgrace it
For I have heard it is a life in death
That laughs and weeps and all but with a breath

Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinishd
Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth
If springing things be any jot diminishd
They wither in their prime prove nothing worth
The colt thats backd and burdend being young
Loseth his pride and never waxeth strong

You hurt my hand with wringing let us part
And leave this idle theme this bootless chat
Remove your siege from my unyielding heart
To loves alarms it will not ope the gate
Dismiss your vows your feigned tears your flattery
For where a heart is hard they make no battery

What canst thou talk quoth she hast thou a tongue
O would thou hadst not or I had no hearing
Thy mermaids voice hath done me double wrong
I had my load before now pressd with bearing
Melodious discord heavenly tune harshsounding
Ears deepsweet music and hearts deepsore wounding

Had I no eyes but ears my ears would love
That inward beauty and invisible
Or were I deaf thy outward parts would move
Each part in me that were but sensible
Though neither eyes nor ears to hear nor see
Yet should I be in love by touching thee

Say that the sense of feeling were bereft me
And that I could not see nor hear nor touch
And nothing but the very smell were left me
Yet would my love to thee be still as much
For from the stillitory of thy face excelling
Comes breath perfumed that breedeth love by
smelling

But O what banquet wert thou to the taste
Being nurse and feeder of the other four
Would they not wish the feast might ever last
And bid Suspicion doublelock the door
Lest Jealousy that sour unwelcome guest
Should by his stealing in disturb the feast

Once more the rubycolourd portal opend
Which to his speech did honey passage yield
Like a red morn that ever yet betokend
Wreck to the seaman tempest to the field
Sorrow to shepherds woe unto the birds
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds

This ill presage advisedly she marketh
Even as the wind is hushd before it raineth
Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh
Or as the berry breaks before it staineth
Or like the deadly bullet of a gun
His meaning struck her ere his words begun

And at his look she flatly falleth down
For looks kill love and love by looks reviveth
A smile recures the wounding of a frown
But blessed bankrupt that by love so thriveth
The silly boy believing she is dead
Claps her pale cheek till clapping makes it red

And all amazed brake off his late intent
For sharply he did think to reprehend her
Which cunning love did wittily prevent
Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her
For on the grass she lies as she were slain
Till his breath breatheth life in her again

He wrings her nose he strikes her on the cheeks
He bends her fingers holds her pulses hard
He chafes her lips a thousand ways he seeks
To mend the hurt that his unkindness marrd
He kisses her and she by her good will
Will never rise so he will kiss her still

The night of sorrow now is turnd to day
Her two blue windows faintly she upheaveth
Like the fair sun when in his fresh array
He cheers the morn and all the earth relieveth
And as the bright sun glorifies the sky
So is her face illumined with her eye

Whose beams upon his hairless face are fixd
As if from thence they borrowd all their shine
Were never four such lamps together mixd
Had not his clouded with his brows repine
But hers which through the crystal tears gave light
Shone like the moon in water seen by night

O where am I quoth she in earth or heaven
Or in the ocean drenchd or in the fire
What hour is this or morn or weary even
Do I delight to die or life desire
But now I lived and life was deaths annoy
But now I died and death was lively joy

O thou didst kill me kill me once again
Thy eyes shrewd tutor that hard heart of thine
Hath taught them scornful tricks and such disdain
That they have murderd this poor heart of mine
And these mine eyes true leaders to their queen
But for thy piteous lips no more had seen

Long may they kiss each other for this cure
O never let their crimson liveries wear
And as they last their verdure still endure
To drive infection from the dangerous year
That the stargazers having writ on death
May say the plague is banishd by thy breath

Pure lips sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted
What bargains may I make still to be sealing
To sell myself I can be well contented
So thou wilt buy and pay and use good dealing
Which purchase if thou make for fear of slips
Set thy sealmanual on my waxred lips

A thousand kisses buys my heart from me
And pay them at thy leisure one by one
What is ten hundred touches unto thee
Are they not quickly told and quickly gone
Say for nonpayment that the debt should double
Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble

Fair queen quoth he if any love you owe me
Measure my strangeness with my unripe years
Before I know myself seek not to know me
No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears
The mellow plum doth fall the green sticks fast
Or being early pluckd is sour to taste

Look the worlds comforter with weary gait
His days hot task hath ended in the west
The owl nights herald shrieks Tis very late
The sheep are gone to fold birds to their nest
And coalblack clouds that shadow heavens light
Do summon us to part and bid good night

Now let me say Good night and so say you
If you will say so you shall have a kiss
Good night quoth she and ere he says Adieu
The honey fee of parting tenderd is
Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace
Incorporate then they seem face grows to face

Till breathless he disjoind and backward drew
The heavenly moisture that sweet coral mouth
Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew
Whereon they surfeit yet complain on drouth
He with her plenty pressd she faint with dearth
Their lips together glued fall to the earth

Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey
And gluttonlike she feeds yet never filleth
Her lips are conquerors his lips obey
Paying what ransom the insulter willeth
Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high
That she will draw his lips rich treasure dry

And having felt the sweetness of the spoil
With blindfold fury she begins to forage
Her face doth reek and smoke her blood doth boil
And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage
Planting oblivion beating reason back
Forgetting shames pure blush and honours wrack

Hot faint and weary with her hard embracing
Like a wild bird being tamed with too much handling
Or as the fleetfoot roe thats tired with chasing
Or like the froward infant stilld with dandling
He now obeys and now no more resisteth
While she takes all she can not all she listeth

What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering
And yields at last to every light impression
Things out of hope are compassd oft with venturing
Chiefly in love whose leave exceeds commission
Affection faints not like a palefaced coward
But then woos best when most his choice is froward

When he did frown O had she then gave over
Such nectar from his lips she had not suckd
Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover
What though the rose have prickles yet tis pluckd
Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast
Yet love breaks through and picks them all at last

For pity now she can no more detain him
The poor fool prays her that he may depart
She is resolved no longer to restrain him
Bids him farewell and look well to her heart
The which by Cupids bow she doth protest
He carries thence incaged in his breast

Sweet boy she says this night Ill waste in sorrow
For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch
Tell me Loves master shall we meet tomorrow
Say shall we shall we wilt thou make the match
He tells her no tomorrow he intends
To hunt the boar with certain of his friends

The boar quoth she whereat a sudden pale
Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose
Usurps her cheek she trembles at his tale
And on his neck her yoking arms she throws
She sinketh down still hanging by his neck
He on her belly falls she on her back

Now is she in the very lists of love
Her champion mounted for the hot encounter
All is imaginary she doth prove
He will not manage her although he mount her
That worse than Tantalus is her annoy
To clip Elysium and to lack her joy

Even as poor birds deceived with painted grapes
Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw
Even so she languisheth in her mishaps
As those poor birds that helpless berries saw
The warm effects which she in him finds missing
She seeks to kindle with continual kissing

But all in vain good queen it will not be
She hath assayd as much as may be proved
Her pleading hath deserved a greater fee
Shes Love she loves and yet she is not loved
Fie fie he says you crush me let me go
You have no reason to withhold me so

Thou hadst been gone quoth she sweet boy ere this
But that thou toldst me thou wouldst hunt the boar
O be advised thou knowst not what it is
With javelins point a churlish swine to gore
Whose tushes never sheathed he whetteth still
Like to a mortal butcher bent to kill

On his bowback he hath a battle set
Of bristly pikes that ever threat his foes
His eyes like glowworms shine when he doth fret
His snout digs sepulchres whereer he goes
Being moved he strikes whateer is in his way
And whom he strikes his cruel tushes slay

His brawny sides with hairy bristles armd
Are better proof than thy spears point can enter
His short thick neck cannot be easily harmd
Being ireful on the lion he will venture
The thorny brambles and embracing bushes
As fearful of him part through whom he rushes

Alas he nought esteems that face of thine
To which Loves eyes pay tributary gazes
Nor thy soft hands sweet lips and crystal eyne
Whose full perfection all the world amazes
But having thee at vantagewondrous dread
Would root these beauties as he roots the mead

O let him keep his loathsome cabin still
Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends
Come not within his danger by thy will
They that thrive well take counsel of their friends
When thou didst name the boar not to dissemble
I feard thy fortune and my joints did tremble

Didst thou not mark my face was it not white
Sawst thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye
Grew I not faint and fell I not downright
Within my bosom whereon thou dost lie
My boding heart pants beats and takes no rest
But like an earthquake shakes thee on my breast

For where Love reigns disturbing Jealousy
Doth call himself Affections sentinel
Gives false alarms suggesteth mutiny
And in a peaceful hour doth cry Kill kill
Distempering gentle Love in his desire
As air and water do abate the fire

This sour informer this batebreeding spy
This canker that eats up Loves tender spring
This carrytale dissentious Jealousy
That sometime true news sometime false doth bring
Knocks at my heat and whispers in mine ear
That if I love thee I thy death should fear

And more than so presenteth to mine eye
The picture of an angrychafing boar
Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie
An image like thyself all staind with gore
Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed
Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head

What should I do seeing thee so indeed
That tremble at the imagination
The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed
And fear doth teach it divination
I prophesy thy death my living sorrow
If thou encounter with the boar tomorrow

But if thou needs wilt hunt be ruled by me
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare
Or at the fox which lives by subtlety
Or at the roe which no encounter dare
Pursue these fearful creatures oer the downs
And on thy wellbreathd horse keep with thy
hounds

And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare
Mark the poor wretch to overshoot his troubles
How he outruns the wind and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles
The many musets through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes

Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell
And sometime where earthdelving conies keep
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell
And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer
Danger deviseth shifts wit waits on fear

For there his smell with others being mingled
The hot scentsnuffing hounds are driven to doubt
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out
Then do they spend their mouths Echo replies
As if another chase were in the skies

By this poor Wat far off upon a hill
Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear
To harken if his foes pursue him still
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear
And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore sick that hears the passingbell

Then shalt thou see the dewbedabbled wretch
Turn and return indenting with the way
Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch
Each shadow makes him stop each murmur stay
For misery is trodden on by many
And being low never relieved by any

Lie quietly and hear a little more
Nay do not struggle for thou shalt not rise
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar
Unlike myself thou hearst me moralize
Applying this to that and so to so
For love can comment upon every woe

Where did I leave No matter where quoth he
Leave me and then the story aptly ends
The night is spent Why what of that quoth she
I am quoth he expected of my friends
And now tis dark and going I shall fall
In night quoth she desire sees best of all

But if thou fall O then imagine this
The earth in love with thee thy footing trips
And all is but to rob thee of a kiss
Rich preys make true men thieves so do thy lips
Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn
Lest she should steal a kiss and die forsworn

Now of this dark night I perceive the reason
Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine
Till forging Nature be condemnd of treason
For stealing moulds from heaven that were divine
Wherein she framed thee in high heavens despite
To shame the sun by day and her by night

And therefore hath she bribed the Destinies
To cross the curious workmanship of nature
To mingle beauty with infirmities
And pure perfection with impure defeature
Making it subject to the tyranny
Of mad mischances and much misery

As burning fevers agues pale and faint
Lifepoisoning pestilence and frenzies wood
The marroweating sickness whose attaint
Disorder breeds by heating of the blood
Surfeits imposthumes grief and damnd despair
Swear natures death for framing thee so fair

And not the least of all these maladies
But in one minutes fight brings beauty under
Both favour savour hue and qualities
Whereat the impartial gazer late did wonder
Are on the sudden wasted thawd and done
As mountainsnow melts with the midday sun

Therefore despite of fruitless chastity
Lovelacking vestals and selfloving nuns
That on the earth would breed a scarcity
And barren dearth of daughters and of sons
Be prodigal the lamp that burns by night
Dries up his oil to lend the world his light

What is thy body but a swallowing grave
Seeming to bury that posterity
Which by the rights of time thou needs must have
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity
If so the world will hold thee in disdain
Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain

So in thyself thyself art made away
A mischief worse than civil homebred strife
Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay
Or butchersire that reaves his son of life
Foulcankering rust the hidden treasure frets
But gold thats put to use more gold begets

Nay then quoth Adon you will fall again
Into your idle overhandled theme
The kiss I gave you is bestowd in vain
And all in vain you strive against the stream
For by this blackfaced night desires foul nurse
Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse

If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues
And every tongue more moving than your own
Bewitching like the wanton mermaids songs
Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown
For know my heart stands armed in mine ear
And will not let a false sound enter there

Lest the deceiving harmony should run
Into the quiet closure of my breast
And then my little heart were quite undone
In his bedchamber to be barrd of rest
No lady no my heart longs not to groan
But soundly sleeps while now it sleeps alone

What have you urged that I cannot reprove
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger
I hate not love but your device in love
That lends embracements unto every stranger
You do it for increase O strange excuse
When reason is the bawd to lusts abuse

Call it not love for Love to heaven is fled
Since sweating Lust on earth usurpd his name
Under whose simple semblance he hath fed
Upon fresh beauty blotting it with blame
Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves
As caterpillars do the tender leaves

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain
But Lusts effect is tempest after sun
Loves gentle spring doth always fresh remain
Lusts winter comes ere summer half be done
Love surfeits not Lust like a glutton dies
Love is all truth Lust full of forged lies

More I could tell but more I dare not say
The text is old the orator too green
Therefore in sadness now I will away
My face is full of shame my heart of teen
Mine ears that to your wanton talk attended
Do burn themselves for having so offended

With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace
Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast
And homeward through the dark laund runs apace
Leaves Love upon her back deeply distressd
Look how a bright star shooteth from the sky
So glides he in the night from Venus eye

Which after him she darts as one on shore
Gazing upon a lateembarked friend
Till the wild waves will have him seen no more
Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend
So did the merciless and pitchy night
Fold in the object that did feed her sight

Whereat amazed as one that unaware
Hath droppd a precious jewel in the flood
Or stonishd as nightwanderers often are
Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood
Even so confounded in the dark she lay
Having lost the fair discovery of her way

And now she beats her heart whereat it groans
That all the neighbour caves as seeming troubled
Make verbal repetition of her moans
Passion on passion deeply is redoubled
Ay me she cries and twenty times Woe woe
And twenty echoes twenty times cry so

She marking them begins a wailing note
And sings extemporally a woeful ditty
How love makes young men thrall and old men dote
How love is wise in folly foolishwitty
Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe
And still the choir of echoes answer so

Her song was tedious and outwore the night
For lovers hours are long though seeming short
If pleased themselves others they think delight
In suchlike circumstance with suchlike sport
Their copious stories oftentimes begun
End without audience and are never done

For who hath she to spend the night withal
But idle sounds resembling parasites
Like shrilltongued tapsters answering every call
Soothing the humour of fantastic wits
She says Tis so they answer all Tis so
And would say after her if she said No

Lo here the gentle lark weary of rest
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high
And wakes the morning from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty
Who doth the world so gloriously behold
That cedartops and hills seem burnishd gold

Venus salutes him with this fair goodmorrow
O thou clear god and patron of all light
From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow
The beauteous influence that makes him bright
There lives a son that suckd an earthly mother
May lend thee light as thou dost lend to other

This said she hasteth to a myrtle grove
Musing the morning is so much oerworn
And yet she hears no tidings of her love
She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn
Anon she hears them chant it lustily
And all in haste she coasteth to the cry

And as she runs the bushes in the way
Some catch her by the neck some kiss her face
Some twine about her thigh to make her stay
She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace
Like a milch doe whose swelling dugs do ache
Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake

By this she hears the hounds are at a bay
Whereat she starts like one that spies an adder
Wreathed up in fatal folds just in his way
The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder
Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds
Appals her senses and her spirit confounds

For now she knows it is no gentle chase
But the blunt boar rough bear or lion proud
Because the cry remaineth in one place
Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud
Finding their enemy to be so curst
They all strain courtesy who shall cope him first

This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear
Through which it enters to surprise her heart
Who overcome by doubt and bloodless fear
With coldpale weakness numbs each feeling part
Like soldiers when their captain once doth yield
They basely fly and dare not stay the field

Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy
Till cheering up her senses all dismayd
She tells them tis a causeless fantasy
And childish error that they are afraid
Bids them leave quaking bids them fear no more
And with that word she spied the hunted boar

Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red
Like milk and blood being mingled both together
A second fear through all her sinews spread
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither
This way runs and now she will no further
But back retires to rate the boar for murther

A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways
She treads the path that she untreads again
Her more than haste is mated with delays
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain
Full of respects yet nought at all respecting
In hand with all things nought at all effecting

Here kennelld in a brake she finds a hound
And asks the weary caitiff for his master
And there another licking of his wound
Gainst venomd sores the only sovereign plaster
And here she meets another sadly scowling
To whom she speaks and he replies with howling

When he hath ceased his illresounding noise
Another flapmouthd mourner black and grim
Against the welkin volleys out his voice
Another and another answer him
Clapping their proud tails to the ground below
Shaking their scratchd ears bleeding as they go

Look how the worlds poor people are amazed
At apparitions signs and prodigies
Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed
Infusing them with dreadful prophecies
So she at these sad signs draws up her breath
And sighing it again exclaims on Death

Hardfavourd tyrant ugly meagre lean
Hateful divorce of lovethus chides she Death
Grimgrinning ghost earths worm what dost thou mean
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath
Who when he lived his breath and beauty set
Gloss on the rose smell to the violet

If he be deadO no it cannot be
Seeing his beauty thou shouldst strike at it
O yes it may thou hast no eyes to see
But hatefully at random dost thou hit
Thy mark is feeble age but thy false dart
Mistakes that aim and cleaves an infants heart

Hadst thou but bid beware then he had spoke
And hearing him thy power had lost his power
The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke
They bid thee crop a weed thou pluckst a flower
Loves golden arrow at him should have fled
And not Deaths ebon dart to strike dead

Dost thou drink tears that thou provokest such weeping
What may a heavy groan advantage thee
Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping
Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see
Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour
Since her best work is ruind with thy rigour

Here overcome as one full of despair
She vaild her eyelids who like sluices stopt
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropt
But through the floodgates breaks the silver rain
And with his strong course opens them again

O how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow
Her eyes seen in the tears tears in her eye
Both crystals where they viewd each others sorrow
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry
But like a stormy day now wind now rain
Sighs dry her cheeks tears make them wet again

Variable passions throng her constant woe
As striving who should best become her grief
All entertaind each passion labours so
That every present sorrow seemeth chief
But none is best then join they all together
Like many clouds consulting for foul weather

By this far off she hears some huntsman hollo
A nurses song neer pleased her babe so well
The dire imagination she did follow
This sound of hope doth labour to expel
For now reviving joy bids her rejoice
And flatters her it is Adonis voice

Whereat her tears began to turn their tide
Being prisond in her eye like pearls in glass
Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside
Which her cheek melts as scorning it should pass
To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground
Who is but drunken when she seemeth drownd

O hardbelieving love how strange it seems
Not to believe and yet too credulous
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes
Despair and hope makes thee ridiculous
The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely
In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly

Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought
Adonis lives and Death is not to blame
It was not she that calld him allto naught
Now she adds honours to his hateful name
She clepes him king of graves and grave for kings
Imperious supreme of all mortal things

No no quoth she sweet Death I did but jest
Yet pardon me I felt a kind of fear
When as I met the boar that bloody beast
Which knows no pity but is still severe
Then gentle shadowtruth I must confess
I raild on thee fearing my loves decease

Tis not my fault the boar provoked my tongue
Be wreakd on him invisible commander
Tis he foul creature that hath done thee wrong
I did but act hes author of thy slander
Grief hath two tongues and never woman yet
Could rule them both without ten womens wit

Thus hoping that Adonis is alive
Her rash suspect she doth extenuate
And that his beauty may the better thrive
With Death she humbly doth insinuate
Tells him of trophies statues tombs and stories
His victories his triumphs and his glories

O Jove quoth she how much a fool was I
To be of such a weak and silly mind
To wail his death who lives and must not die
Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind
For he being dead with him is beauty slain
And beauty dead black chaos comes again

Fie fie fond love thou art so full of fear
As one with treasure laden hemmd thieves
Trifles unwitnessed with eye or ear
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves
Even at this word she hears a merry horn
Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn

As falcon to the lure away she flies
The grass stoops not she treads on it so light
And in her haste unfortunately spies
The foul boars conquest on her fair delight
Which seen her eyes as murderd with the view
Like stars ashamed of day themselves withdrew

Or as the snail whose tender horns being hit
Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain
And there all smotherd up in shade doth sit
Long after fearing to creep forth again
So at his bloody view her eyes are fled
Into the deep dark cabins of her head

Where they resign their office and their light
To the disposing of her troubled brain
Who bids them still consort with ugly night
And never wound the heart with looks again
Who like a king perplexed in his throne
By their suggestion gives a deadly groan

Whereat each tributary subject quakes
As when the wind imprisond in the ground
Struggling for passage earths foundation shakes
Which with cold terror doth mens minds confound
This mutiny each part doth so surprise
That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes

And being opend threw unwilling light
Upon the wide wound that the boar had trenchd
In his soft flank whose wonted lily white
With purple tears that his wound wept was drenchd
No flower was nigh no grass herb leaf or weed
But stole his blood and seemd with him to bleed

This solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth
Over one shoulder doth she hang her head
Dumbly she passions franticly she doteth
She thinks he could not die he is not dead
Her voice is stopt her joints forget to bow
Her eyes are mad that they have wept til now

Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly
That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three
And then she reprehends her mangling eye
That makes more gashes where no breach should be
His face seems twain each several limb is doubled
For oft the eye mistakes the brain being troubled

My tongue cannot express my grief for one
And yet quoth she behold two Adons dead
My sighs are blown away my salt tears gone
Mine eyes are turnd to fire my heart to lead
Heavy hearts lead melt at mine eyes red fire
So shall I die by drops of hot desire

Alas poor world what treasure hast thou lost
What face remains alive thats worth the viewing
Whose tongue is music now what canst thou boast
Of things long since or any thing ensuing
The flowers are sweet their colours fresh and trim
But truesweet beauty lived and died with him

Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear
Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you
Having no fair to lose you need not fear
The sun doth scorn you and the wind doth hiss you
But when Adonis lived sun and sharp air
Lurkd like two thieves to rob him of his fair

And therefore would he put his bonnet on
Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep
The wind would blow it off and being gone
Play with his locks then would Adonis weep
And straight in pity of his tender years
They both would strive who first should dry his tears

To see his face the lion walkd along
Behind some hedge because he would not fear him
To recreate himself when he hath sung
The tiger would be tame and gently hear him
If he had spoke the wolf would leave his prey
And never fright the silly lamb that day

When he beheld his shadow in the brook
The fishes spread on it their golden gills
When he was by the birds such pleasure took
That some would sing some other in their bills
Would bring him mulberries and ripered cherries
He fed them with his sight they him with berries

But this foul grim and urchinsnouted boar
Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave
Neer saw the beauteous livery that he wore
Witness the entertainment that he gave
If he did see his face why then I know
He thought to kiss him and hath killd him so

Tis true tis true thus was Adonis slain
He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear
Who did not whet his teeth at him again
But by a kiss thought to persuade him there
And nuzzling in his flank the loving swine
Sheathed unaware the tusk in his soft groin

Had I been toothd like him I must confess
With kissing him I should have killd him first
But he is dead and never did he bless
My youth with his the more am I accurst
With this she falleth in the place she stood
And stains her face with his congealed blood

She looks upon his lips and they are pale
She takes him by the hand and that is cold
She whispers in his ears a heavy tale
As if they heard the woeful words she told
She lifts the cofferlids that close his eyes
Where lo two lamps burnt out in darkness lies

Two glasses where herself herself beheld
A thousand times and now no more reflect
Their virtue lost wherein they late excelld
And every beauty robbd of his effect
Wonder of time quoth she this is my spite
That thou being dead the day should yet be light

Since thou art dead lo here I prophesy
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend
It shall be waited on with jealousy
Find sweet beginning but unsavoury end
Neer settled equally but high or low
That all loves pleasure shall not match his woe

It shall be fickle false and full of fraud
Bud and be blasted in a breathingwhile
The bottom poison and the top oerstrawd
With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile
The strongest body shall it make most weak
Strike the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak

It shall be sparing and too full of riot
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet
Pluck down the rich enrich the poor with treasures
It shall be ragingmad and sillymild
Make the young old the old become a child

It shall suspect where is no cause of fear
It shall not fear where it should most mistrust
It shall be merciful and too severe
And most deceiving when it seems most just
Perverse it shall be where it shows most toward
Put fear to valour courage to the coward

It shall be cause of war and dire events
And set dissension twixt the son and sire
Subject and servile to all discontents
As dry combustious matter is to fire
Sith in his prime Death doth my love destroy
They that love best their loves shall not enjoy

By this the boy that by her side lay killd
Was melted like a vapour from her sight
And in his blood that on the ground lay spilld
A purple flower sprung up chequerd with white
Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood

She bows her head the newsprung flower to smell
Comparing it to her Adonis breath
And says within her bosom it shall dwell
Since he himself is reft from her by death
She crops the stalk and in the breach appears
Green dropping sap which she compares to tears

Poor flower quoth she this was thy fathers guise
Sweet issue of a more sweetsmelling sire
For every little grief to wet his eyes
To grow unto himself was his desire
And so tis thine but know it is as good
To wither in my breast as in his blood

Here was thy fathers bed here in my breast
Thou art the next of blood and tis thy right
Lo in this hollow cradle take thy rest
My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night
There shall not be one minute in an hour
Wherein I will not kiss my sweet loves flower

Thus weary of the world away she hies
And yokes her silver doves by whose swift aid
Their mistress mounted through the empty skies
In her light chariot quickly is conveyd
Holding their course to Paphos where their queen
Means to immure herself and not be seen



	END



	THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY
Earl of Southampton and Baron of Tichfield


The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end whereof
this pamphlet without beginning is but a superfluous moiety
The warrant I have of your honourable disposition not the worth
of my untutored lines makes it assured of acceptance What I
have done is yours what I have to do is yours being part in
all I have devoted yours Were my worth greater my duty would
show greater meantime as it is it is bound to your lordship
to whom I wish long life still lengthened with all happiness

Your lordships in all duty
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE



	THE RAPE OF LUCRECE


	THE ARGUMENT


Lucius Tarquinius for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus
after he had caused his own fatherinlaw Servius Tullius to be
cruelly murdered and contrary to the Roman laws and customs
not requiring or staying for the peoples suffrages had
possessed himself of the kingdom went accompanied with his sons
and other noblemen of Rome to besiege Ardea During which siege
the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of
Sextus Tarquinius the kings son in their discourses after
supper every one commended the virtues of his own wife among
whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife
Lucretia In that pleasant humour they posted to Rome and
intending by their secret and sudden arrival to make trial of
that which every one had before avouched only Collatinus finds
his wife though it were late in the night spinning amongst her
maids the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling or
in several disports Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus
the victory and his wife the fame At that time Sextus
Tarquinius being inflamed with Lucrece beauty yet smothering
his passions for the present departed with the rest back to the
camp from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself and
was according to his estate royally entertained and lodged by
Lucrece at Collatium The same night he treacherously stealeth
into her chamber violently ravished her and early in the
morning speedeth away Lucrece in this lamentable plight
hastily dispatcheth messengers one to Rome for her father
another to the camp for Collatine They came the one
accompanied with Junius Brutus the other with Publius Valerius
and finding Lucrece attired in mourning habit demanded the cause
of her sorrow She first taking an oath of them for her
revenge revealed the actor and whole manner of his dealing and
withal suddenly stabbed herself Which done with one consent
they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the
Tarquins and bearing the dead body to Rome Brutus acquainted
the people with the doer and manner of the vile deed with a
bitter invective against the tyranny of the king wherewith the
people were so moved that with one consent and a general
acclamation the Tarquins were all exiled and the state
government changed from kings to consuls



	THE RAPE OF LUCRECE



FROM the besieged Ardea all in post
Borne by the trustless wings of false desire
Lustbreathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host
And to Collatium bears the lightless fire
Which in pale embers hid lurks to aspire
And girdle with embracing flames the waist
Of Collatines fair love Lucrece the chaste

Haply that name of chaste unhappily set
This bateless edge on his keen appetite
When Collatine unwisely did not let
To praise the clear unmatched red and white
Which triumphd in that sky of his delight
Where mortal stars as bright as heavens beauties
With pure aspects did him peculiar duties

For he the night before in Tarquins tent
Unlockd the treasure of his happy state
What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent
In the possession of his beauteous mate
Reckoning his fortune at such highproud rate
That kings might be espoused to more fame
But king nor peer to such a peerless dame

O happiness enjoyd but of a few
And if possessd as soon decayd and done
As is the mornings silvermelting dew
Against the golden splendor of the sun
An expired date cancelld ere well begun
Honour and beauty in the owners arms
Are weakly fortressd from a world of harms

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator
What needeth then apologies be made
To set forth that which is so singular
Or why is Collatine the publisher
Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown
From thievish ears because it is his own

Perchance his boast of Lucrece sovereignty
Suggested this proud issue of a king
For by our ears our hearts oft tainted be
Perchance that envy of so rich a thing
Braving compare disdainfully did sting
His highpitchd thoughts that meaner men should vaunt
That golden hap which their superiors want

But some untimely thought did instigate
His alltootimeless speed if none of those
His honour his affairs his friends his state
Neglected all with swift intent he goes
To quench the coal which in his liver glows
O rash false heat wrappd in repentant cold
Thy hasty spring still blasts and neer grows old

When at Collatium this false lord arrived
Well was he welcomed by the Roman dame
Within whose face beauty and virtue strived
Which of them both should underprop her fame
When virtue braggd beauty would blush for shame
When beauty boasted blushes in despite
Virtue would stain that oer with silver white

But beauty in that white intituled
From Venus doves doth challenge that fair field
Then virtue claims from beauty beautys red
Which virtue gave the golden age to gild
Their silver cheeks and calld it then their shield
Teaching them thus to use it in the fight
When shame assaild the red should fence the white

This heraldry in Lucrece face was seen
Argued by beautys red and virtues white
Of eithers colour was the other queen
Proving from worlds minority their right
Yet their ambition makes them still to fight
The sovereignty of either being so great
That oft they interchange each others seat

Their silent war of lilies and of roses
Which Tarquin viewd in her fair faces field
In their pure ranks his traitor eye encloses
Where lest between them both it should be killd
The coward captive vanquished doth yield
To those two armies that would let him go
Rather than triumph in so false a foe

Now thinks he that her husbands shallow tongue
The niggard prodigal that praised her so
In that high task hath done her beauty wrong
Which far exceeds his barren skill to show
Therefore that praise which Collatine doth owe
Enchanted Tarquin answers with surmise
In silent wonder of stillgazing eyes

This earthly saint adored by this devil
Little suspecteth the false worshipper
For unstaind thoughts do seldom dream on evil
Birds never limed no secret bushes fear
So guiltless she securely gives good cheer
And reverend welcome to her princely guest
Whose inward ill no outward harm expressd

For that he colourd with his high estate
Hiding base sin in plaits of majesty
That nothing in him seemd inordinate
Save something too much wonder of his eye
Which having all all could not satisfy
But poorly rich so wanteth in his store
That cloyd with much he pineth still for more

But she that never coped with stranger eyes
Could pick no meaning from their parling looks
Nor read the subtleshining secrecies
Writ in the glassy margents of such books
She touchd no unknown baits nor feard no hooks
Nor could she moralize his wanton sight
More than his eyes were opend to the light

He stories to her ears her husbands fame
Won in the fields of fruitful Italy
And decks with praises Collatines high name
Made glorious by his manly chivalry
With bruised arms and wreaths of victory
Her joy with heavedup hand she doth express
And wordless so greets heaven for his success

Far from the purpose of his coming hither
He makes excuses for his being there
No cloudy show of stormy blustering weather
Doth yet in his fair welkin once appear
Till sable Night mother of Dread and Fear
Upon the world dim darkness doth display
And in her vaulty prison stows the Day

For then is Tarquin brought unto his bed
Intending weariness with heavy spright
For after supper long he questioned
With modest Lucrece and wore out the night
Now leaden slumber with lifes strength doth fight
And every one to rest themselves betake
Save thieves and cares and troubled minds that wake

As one of which doth Tarquin lie revolving
The sundry dangers of his wills obtaining
Yet ever to obtain his will resolving
Though weakbuilt hopes persuade him to abstaining
Despair to gain doth traffic oft for gaining
And when great treasure is the meed proposed
Though death be adjunct theres no death supposed

Those that much covet are with gain so fond
For what they have not that which they possess
They scatter and unloose it from their bond
And so by hoping more they have but less
Or gaining more the profit of excess
Is but to surfeit and such griefs sustain
That they prove bankrupt in this poorrich gain

The aim of all is but to nurse the life
With honour wealth and ease in waning age
And in this aim there is such thwarting strife
That one for all or all for one we gage
As life for honour in fell battles rage
Honour for wealth and oft that wealth doth cost
The death of all and all together lost

So that in venturing ill we leave to be
The things we are for that which we expect
And this ambitious foul infirmity
In having much torments us with defect
Of that we have so then we do neglect
The thing we have and all for want of wit
Make something nothing by augmenting it

Such hazard now must doting Tarquin make
Pawning his honour to obtain his lust
And for himself himself be must forsake
Then where is truth if there be no selftrust
When shall he think to find a stranger just
When he himself himself confounds betrays
To slanderous tongues and wretched hateful days

Now stole upon the time the dead of night
When heavy sleep had closed up mortal eyes
No comfortable star did lend his light
No noise but owls and wolves deathboding cries
Now serves the season that they may surprise
The silly lambs pure thoughts are dead and still
While lust and murder wake to stain and kill

And now this lustful lord leapd from his bed
Throwing his mantle rudely oer his arm
Is madly tossd between desire and dread
Th one sweetly flatters th other feareth harm
But honest fear bewitchd with lusts foul charm
Doth too too oft betake him to retire
Beaten away by brainsick rude desire

His falchion on a flint he softly smiteth
That from the cold stone sparks of fire do fly
Whereat a waxen torch forthwith he lighteth
Which must be lodestar to his lustful eye
And to the flame thus speaks advisedly
As from this cold flint I enforced this fire
So Lucrece must I force to my desire

Here pale with fear he doth premeditate
The dangers of his loathsome enterprise
And in his inward mind he doth debate
What following sorrow may on this arise
Then looking scornfully he doth despise
His naked armour of stillslaughterd lust
And justly thus controls his thoughts unjust

Fair torch burn out thy light and lend it not
To darken her whose light excelleth thine
And die unhallowd thoughts before you blot
With your uncleanness that which is divine
Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine
Let fair humanity abhor the deed
That spots and stains loves modest snowwhite weed

O shame to knighthood and to shining arms
O foul dishonour to my households grave
O impious act including all foul harms
A martial man to be soft fancys slave
True valour still a true respect should have
Then my digression is so vile so base
That it will live engraven in my face

Yea though I die the scandal will survive
And be an eyesore in my golden coat
Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive
To cipher me how fondly I did dote
That my posterity shamed with the note
Shall curse my bones and hold it for no sin
To wish that I their father had not bin

What win I if I gain the thing I seek
A dream a breath a froth of fleeting joy
Who buys a minutes mirth to wail a week
Or sells eternity to get a toy
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy
Or what fond beggar but to touch the crown
Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down

If Collatinus dream of my intent
Will he not wake and in a desperate rage
Post hither this vile purpose to prevent
This siege that hath engirt his marriage
This blur to youth this sorrow to the sage
This dying virtue this surviving shame
Whose crime will bear an everduring blame

O what excuse can my invention make
When thou shalt charge me with so black a deed
Will not my tongue be mute my frail joints shake
Mine eyes forego their light my false heart bleed
The guilt being great the fear doth still exceed
And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly
But cowardlike with trembling terror die


Had Collatinus killd my son or sire
Or lain in ambush to betray my life
Or were he not my dear friend this desire
Might have excuse to work upon his wife
As in revenge or quittal of such strife
But as he is my kinsman my dear friend
The shame and fault finds no excuse nor end

Shameful it is ay if the fact be known
Hateful it is there is no hate in loving
Ill beg her love but she is own
The worst is but denial and reproving
My will is strong past reasons weak removing
Who fears a sentence or an old mans saw
Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe

Thus graceless holds he disputation
Tween frozen conscience and hotburning will
And with good thoughts make dispensation
Urging the worser sense for vantage still
Which in a moment doth confound and kill
All pure effects and doth so far proceed
That what is vile shows like a virtuous deed

Quoth he She took me kindly by the hand
And gazed for tidings in my eager eyes
Fearing some hard news from the warlike band
Where her beloved Collatinus lies
O how her fear did make her colour rise
First red as roses that on lawn we lay
Then white as lawn the roses took away

And how her hand in my hand being lockd
Forced it to tremble with her loyal fear
Which struck her sad and then it faster rockd
Until her husbands welfare she did hear
Whereat she smiled with so sweet a cheer
That had Narcissus seen her as she stood
Selflove had never drownd him in the flood

Why hunt I then for colour or excuses
All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth
Poor wretches have remorse in poor abuses
Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth
Affection is my captain and he leadeth
And when his gaudy banner is displayd
The coward fights and will not be dismayd

Then childish fear avaunt debating die
Respect and reason wait on wrinkled age
My heart shall never countermand mine eye
Sad pause and deep regard beseem the sage
My part is youth and beats these from the stage
Desire my pilot is beauty my prize
Then who fears sinking where such treasure lies

As corn oergrown by weeds so heedful fear
Is almost choked by unresisted lust
Away he steals with open listening ear
Full of foul hope and full of fond mistrust
Both which as servitors to the unjust
So cross him with their opposite persuasion
That now he vows a league and now invasion

Within his thought her heavenly image sits
And in the selfsame seat sits Collatine
That eye which looks on her confounds his wits
That eye which him beholds as more divine
Unto a view so false will not incline
But with a pure appeal seeks to the heart
Which once corrupted takes the worser part

And therein heartens up his servile powers
Who flatterd by their leaders jocund show
Stuff up his lust as minutes fill up hours
And as their captain so their pride doth grow
Paying more slavish tribute than they owe
By reprobate desire thus madly led
The Roman lord marcheth to Lucrece bed

The locks between her chamber and his will
Each one by him enforced retires his ward
But as they open they all rate his ill
Which drives the creeping thief to some regard
The threshold grates the door to have him heard
Nightwandering weasels shriek to see him there
They fright him yet he still pursues his fear

As each unwilling portal yields him way
Through little vents and crannies of the place
The wind wars with his torch to make him stay
And blows the smoke of it into his face
Extinguishing his conduct in this case
But his hot heart which fond desire doth scorch
Puffs forth another wind that fires the torch

And being lighted by the light he spies
Lucretias glove wherein her needle sticks
He takes it from the rushes where it lies
And griping it the needle his finger pricks
As who should say This glove to wanton tricks
Is not inured return again in haste
Thou seest our mistress ornaments are chaste

But all these poor forbiddings could not stay him
He in the worst sense construes their denial
The doors the wind the glove that did delay him
He takes for accidental things of trial
Or as those bars which stop the hourly dial
Who with a lingering slay his course doth let
Till every minute pays the hour his debt

So so quoth he these lets attend the time
Like little frosts that sometime threat the spring
To add a more rejoicing to the prime
And give the sneaped birds more cause to sing
Pain pays the income of each precious thing
Huge rocks high winds strong pirates shelves and sands
The merchant fears ere rich at home he lands

Now is he come unto the chamberdoor
That shuts him from the heaven of his thought
Which with a yielding latch and with no more
Hath barrd him from the blessed thing be sought
So from himself impiety hath wrought
That for his prey to pray he doth begin
As if the heavens should countenance his sin

But in the midst of his unfruitful prayer
Having solicited th eternal power
That his foul thoughts might compass his fair fair
And they would stand auspicious to the hour
Even there he starts quoth he I must deflower
The powers to whom I pray abhor this fact
How can they then assist me in the act

Then Love and Fortune be my gods my guide
My will is backd with resolution
Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried
The blackest sin is cleard with absolution
Against loves fire fears frost hath dissolution
The eye of heaven is out and misty night
Covers the shame that follows sweet delight

This said his guilty hand pluckd up the latch
And with his knee the door he opens wide
The dove sleeps fast that this nightowl will catch
Thus treason works ere traitors be espied
Who sees the lurking serpent steps aside
But she sound sleeping fearing no such thing
Lies at the mercy of his mortal sting

Into the chamber wickedly he stalks
And gazeth on her yet unstained bed
The curtains being close about he walks
Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head
By their high treason is his heart misled
Which gives the watchword to his hand full soon
To draw the cloud that hides the silver moon

Look as the fair and fierypointed sun
Rushing from forth a cloud bereaves our sight
Even so the curtain drawn his eyes begun
To wink being blinded with a greater light
Whether it is that she reflects so bright
That dazzleth them or else some shame supposed
But blind they are and keep themselves enclosed

O had they in that darksome prison died
Then had they seen the period of their ill
Then Collatine again by Lucrece side
In his clear bed might have reposed still
But they must ope this blessed league to kill
And holythoughted Lucrece to their sight
Must sell her joy her life her worlds delight

Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under
Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss
Who therefore angry seems to part in sunder
Swelling on either side to want his bliss
Between whose hills her head entombed is
Where like a virtuous monument she lies
To be admired of lewd unhallowd eyes

Without the bed her other fair hand was
On the green coverlet whose perfect white
Showd like an April daisy on the grass
With pearly sweat resembling dew of night
Her eyes like marigolds had sheathed their light
And canopied in darkness sweetly lay
Till they might open to adorn the day

Her hair like golden threads playd with her breath
O modest wantons wanton modesty
Showing lifes triumph in the map of death
And deaths dim look in lifes mortality
Each in her sleep themselves so beautify
As if between them twain there were no strife
But that life lived in death and death in life

Her breasts like ivory globes circled with blue
A pair of maiden worlds unconquered
Save of their lord no bearing yoke they knew
And him by oath they truly honoured
These worlds in Tarquin new ambition bred
Who like a foul ursurper went about
From this fair throne to heave the owner out

What could he see but mightily he noted
What did he note but strongly he desired
What he beheld on that he firmly doted
And in his will his wilful eye he tired
With more than admiration he admired
Her azure veins her alabaster skin
Her coral lips her snowwhite dimpled chin

As the grim lion fawneth oer his prey
Sharp hunger by the conquest satisfied
So oer this sleeping soul doth Tarquin stay
His rage of lust by gazing qualified
Slackd not suppressd for standing by her side
His eye which late this mutiny restrains
Unto a greater uproar tempts his veins

And they like straggling slaves for pillage fighting
Obdurate vassals fell exploits effecting
In bloody death and ravishment delighting
Nor childrens tears nor mothers groans respecting
Swell in their pride the onset still expecting
Anon his beating heart alarum striking
Gives the hot charge and bids them do their liking

His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye
His eye commends the leading to his hand
His hand as proud of such a dignity
Smoking with pride marchd on to make his stand
On her bare breast the heart of all her land
Whose ranks of blue veins as his hand did scale
Left there round turrets destitute and pale

They mustering to the quiet cabinet
Where their dear governess and lady lies
Do tell her she is dreadfully beset
And fright her with confusion of their cries
She much amazed breaks ope her lockdup eyes
Who peeping forth this tumult to behold
Are by his flaming torch dimmd and controlld

Imagine her as one in dead of night
From forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking
That thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite
Whose grim aspect sets every joint ashaking
What terror or tis but she in worser taking
From sleep disturbed heedfully doth view
The sight which makes supposed terror true

Wrappd and confounded in a thousand fears
Like to a newkilld bird she trembling lies
She dares not look yet winking there appears
Quickshifting antics ugly in her eyes
Such shadows are the weak brains forgeries
Who angry that the eyes fly from their lights
In darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights

His hand that yet remains upon her breast
Rude ram to batter such an ivory wall
May feel her heartpoor citizendistressd
Wounding itself to death rise up and fall
Beating her bulk that his hand shakes withal
This moves in him more rage and lesser pity
To make the breach and enter this sweet city

First like a trumpet doth his tongue begin
To sound a parley to his heartless foe
Who oer the white sheet peers her whiter chin
The reason of this rash alarm to know
Which he by dumb demeanor seeks to show
But she with vehement prayers urgeth still
Under what colour he commits this ill

Thus he replies The colour in thy face
That even for anger makes the lily pale
And the red rose blush at her own disgrace
Shall plead for me and tell my loving tale
Under that colour am I come to scale
Thy neverconquerd fort the fault is thine
For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine

Thus I forestall thee if thou mean to chide
Thy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night
Where thou with patience must my will abide
My will that marks thee for my earths delight
Which I to conquer sought with all my might
But as reproof and reason beat it dead
By thy bright beauty was it newly bred

I see what crosses my attempt will bring
I know what thorns the growing rose defends
I think the honey guarded with a sting
All this beforehand counsel comprehends
But will is deaf and hears no heedful friends
Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty
And dotes on what he looks gainst law or duty

I have debated even in my soul
What wrong what shame what sorrow I shall breed
But nothing can affections course control
Or stop the headlong fury of his speed
I know repentant tears ensue the deed
Reproach disdain and deadly enmity
Yet strive I to embrace mine infamy

This said he shakes aloft his Roman blade
Which like a falcon towering in the skies
Coucheth the fowl below with his wings shade
Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies
So under his insulting falchion lies
Harmless Lucretia marking what he tells
With trembling fear as fowl hear falcons bells

Lucrece quoth hethis night I must enjoy thee
If thou deny then force must work my way
For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee
That done some worthless slave of thine Ill slay
To kill thine honour with thy lifes decay
And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him
Swearing I slew him seeing thee embrace him

So thy surviving husband shall remain
The scornful mark of every open eye
Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain
Thy issue blurrd with nameless bastardy
And thou the author of their obloquy
Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rhymes
And sung by children in succeeding times

But if thou yield I rest thy secret friend
The fault unknown is as a thought unacted
A little harm done to a great good end
For lawful policy remains enacted
The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted
In a pure compound being so applied
His venom in effect is purified

Then for thy husband and thy childrens sake
Tender my suit bequeath not to their lot
The shame that from them no device can take
The blemish that will never be forgot
Worse than a slavish wipe or birthhours blot
For marks descried in mens nativity
Are natures faults not their own infamy

Here with a cockatrice deadkilling eye
He rouseth up himself and makes a pause
While she the picture of pure piety
Like a white hind under the gripes sharp claws
Pleads in a wilderness where are no laws
To the rough beast that knows no gentle right
Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite

But when a blackfaced cloud the world doth threat
In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding
From earths dark womb some gentle gust doth get
Which blows these pitchy vapours from their bidding
Hindering their present fall by this dividing
So his unhallowd haste her words delays
And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays

Yet foul nightwaking cat he doth but dally
While in his holdfast foot the weak mouse panteth
Her sad behavior feeds his vulture folly
A swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth
His ear her prayers admits but his heart granteth
No penetrable entrance to her plaining
Tears harden lust though marble wear with raining

Her pitypleading eyes are sadly fixd
In the remorseless wrinkles of his face
Her modest eloquence with sighs is mixd
Which to her oratory adds more grace
She puts the period often from his place
And midst the sentence so her accent breaks
That twice she doth begin ere once she speaks

She conjures him by high almighty Jove
By knighthood gentry and sweet friendships oath
By her untimely tears her husbands love
By holy human law and common troth
By heaven and earth and all the power of both
That to his borrowd bed he make retire
And stoop to honour not to foul desire

Quoth she Reward not hospitality
With such black payment as thou hast pretended
Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee
Mar not the thing that cannot be amended
End thy ill aim before thy shoot be ended
He is no woodman that doth bend his bow
To strike a poor unseasonable doe

My husband is thy friend for his sake spare me
Thyself art mighty for thine own sake leave me
Myself a weakling do not then ensnare me
Thou lookst not like deceit do not deceive me
My sighs like whirlwinds labour hence to heave thee
If ever man were moved with woman moans
Be moved with my tears my sighs my groans

All which together like a troubled ocean
Beat at thy rocky and wreckthreatening heart
To soften it with their continual motion
For stones dissolved to water do convert
O if no harder than a stone thou art
Melt at my tears and be compassionate
Soft pity enters at an iron gate

In Tarquins likeness I did entertain thee
Hast thou put on his shape to do him shame
To all the host of heaven I complain me
Thou wrongst his honour woundst his princely name
Thou art not what thou seemst and if the same
Thou seemst not what thou art a god a king
For kings like gods should govern everything

How will thy shame be seeded in thine age
When thus thy vices bud before thy spring
If in thy hope thou darest do such outrage
What darest thou not when once thou art a king
O be rememberd no outrageous thing
From vassal actors can be wiped away
Then kings misdeeds cannot be hid in clay

This deed will make thee only loved for fear
But happy monarchs still are feard for love
With foul offenders thou perforce must bear
When they in thee the like offences prove
If but for fear of this thy will remove
For princes are the glass the school the book
Where subjects eyes do learn do read do look

And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn
Must he in thee read lectures of such shame
Wilt thou be glass wherein it shall discern
Authority for sin warrant for blame
To privilege dishonour in thy name
Thou blackst reproach against longliving laud
And makest fair reputation but a bawd

Hast thou command by him that gave it thee
From a pure heart command thy rebel will
Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity
For it was lent thee all that brood to kill
Thy princely office how canst thou fulfil
When patternd by thy fault foul sin may say
He learnd to sin and thou didst teach the way

Think but how vile a spectacle it were
To view thy present trespass in another
Mens faults do seldom to themselves appear
Their own transgressions partially they smother
This guilt would seem deathworthy in thy brother
O how are they wrappd in with infamies
That from their own misdeeds askance their eyes

To thee to thee my heavedup hands appeal
Not to seducing lust thy rash relier
I sue for exiled majestys repeal
Let him return and flattering thoughts retire
His true respect will prison false desire
And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne
That thou shalt see thy state and pity mine

Have done quoth he my uncontrolled tide
Turns not but swells the higher by this let
Small lights are soon blown out huge fires abide
And with the wind in greater fury fret
The petty streams that pay a daily debt
To their salt sovereign with their fresh falls haste
Add to his flow but alter not his taste

Thou art quoth she a sea a sovereign king
And lo there falls into thy boundless flood
Black lust dishonour shame misgoverning
Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood
If all these pretty ills shall change thy good
Thy sea within a puddles womb is hearsed
And not the puddle in thy sea dispersed

So shall these slaves be king and thou their slave
Thou nobly base they basely dignified
Thou their fair life and they thy fouler grave
Thou loathed in their shame they in thy pride
The lesser thing should not the greater hide
The cedar stoops not to the base shrubs foot
But low shrubs wither at the cedars root

So let thy thoughts low vassals to thy state
No more quoth he by heaven I will not hear thee
Yield to my love if not enforced hate
Instead of loves coy touch shall rudely tear thee
That done despitefully I mean to bear thee
Unto the base bed of some rascal groom
To be thy partner in this shameful doom

This said he sets his foot upon the light
For light and lust are deadly enemies
Shame folded up in blind concealing night
When most unseen then most doth tyrannize
The wolf hath seized his prey the poor lamb cries
Till with her own white fleece her voice controlld
Entombs her outcry in her lips sweet fold

For with the nightly linen that she wears
He pens her piteous clamours in her head
Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears
That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed
O that prone lust should stain so pure a bed
The spots whereof could weeping purify
Her tears should drop on them perpetually

But she hath lost a dearer thing than life
And he hath won what he would lose again
This forced league doth force a further strife
This momentary joy breeds months of pain
This hot desire converts to cold disdain
Pure Chastity is rifled of her store
And Lust the thief far poorer than before

Look as the fullfed hound or gorged hawk
Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight
Make slow pursuit or altogether balk
The prey wherein by nature they delight
So surfeittaking Tarquin fares this night
His taste delicious in digestion souring
Devours his will that lived by foul devouring

O deeper sin than bottomless conceit
Can comprehend in still imagination
Drunken Desire must vomit his receipt
Ere he can see his own abomination
While Lust is in his pride no exclamation
Can curb his heat or rein his rash desire
Till like a jade Selfwill himself doth tire

And then with lank and lean discolourd cheek
With heavy eye knit brow and strengthless pace
Feeble Desire all recreant poor and meek
Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case
The flesh being proud Desire doth fight with Grace
For there it revels and when that decays
The guilty rebel for remission prays

So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome
Who this accomplishment so hotly chased
For now against himself he sounds this doom
That through the length of times he stands disgraced
Besides his souls fair temple is defaced
To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares
To ask the spotted princess how she fares

She says her subjects with foul insurrection
Have batterd down her consecrated wall
And by their mortal fault brought in subjection
Her immortality and made her thrall
To living death and pain perpetual
Which in her prescience she controlled still
But her foresight could not forestall their will

Even in this thought through the dark night he stealeth
A captive victor that hath lost in gain
Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth
The scar that will despite of cure remain
Leaving his spoil perplexd in greater pain
She bears the load of lust he left behind
And he the burden of a guilty mind

He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence
She like a wearied lamb lies panting there
He scowls and hates himself for his offence
She desperate with her nails her flesh doth tear
He faintly flies sneaking with guilty fear
She stays exclaiming on the direful night
He runs and chides his vanishd loathed delight

He thence departs a heavy convertite
She there remains a hopeless castaway
He in his speed looks for the morning light
She prays she never may behold the day
For day quoth she nights scapes doth open lay
And my true eyes have never practised how
To cloak offences with a cunning brow

They think not but that every eye can see
The same disgrace which they themselves behold
And therefore would they still in darkness be
To have their unseen sin remain untold
For they their guilt with weeping will unfold
And grave like water that doth eat in steel
Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel

Here she exclaims against repose and rest
And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind
She wakes her heart by beating on her breast
And bids it leap from thence where it may find
Some purer chest to close so pure a mind
Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite
Against the unseen secrecy of night

O comfortkilling Night image of hell
Dim register and notary of shame
Black stage for tragedies and murders fell
Vast sinconcealing chaos nurse of blame
Blind muffled bawd dark harbour for defame
Grim cave of death whispering conspirator
With closetongued treason and the ravisher

O hateful vaporous and foggy Night
Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime
Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light
Make war against proportiond course of time
Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb
His wonted height yet ere he go to bed
Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head

With rotten damps ravish the morning air
Let their exhaled unwholesome breaths make sick
The life of purity the supreme fair
Ere he arrive his weary noontide prick
And let thy misty vapours march so thick
That in their smoky ranks his smotherd light
May set at noon and make perpetual night

Were Tarquin Night as he is but Nights child
The silvershining queen he would distain
Her twinkling handmaids too by him defiled
Through Nights black bosom should not peep again
So should I have copartners in my pain
And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage
As palmers chat makes short their pilgrimage

Where now I have no one to blush with me
To cross their arms and hang their heads with mine
To mask their brows and hide their infamy
But I alone alone must sit and pine
Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine
Mingling my talk with tears my grief with groans
Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans

O Night thou furnace of foulreeking smoke
Let not the jealous Day behold that face
Which underneath thy black allhiding cloak
Immodestly lies martyrd with disgrace
Keep still possession of thy gloomy place
That all the faults which in thy reign are made
May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade

Make me not object to the telltale Day
The light will show characterd in my brow
The story of sweet chastitys decay
The impious breach of holy wedlock vow
Yea the illiterate that know not how
To cipher what is writ in learned books
Will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks

The nurse to still her child will tell my story
And fright her crying babe with Tarquins name
The orator to deck his oratory
Will couple my reproach to Tarquins shame
Feastfinding minstrels tuning my defame
Will tie the hearers to attend each line
How Tarquin wronged me I Collatine

Let my good name that senseless reputation
For Collatines dear love be kept unspotted
If that be made a theme for disputation
The branches of another root are rotted
And undeserved reproach to him allotted
That is as clear from this attaint of mine
As I ere this was pure to Collatine

O unseen shame invisible disgrace
O unfelt sore crestwounding private scar
Reproach is stampd in Collatinus face
And Tarquins eye may read the mot afar
How he in peace is wounded not in war
Alas how many bear such shameful blows
Which not themselves but he that gives them knows

If Collatine thine honour lay in me
From me by strong assault it is bereft
My honour lost and I a dronelike bee
Have no perfection of my summer left
But robbd and ransackd by injurious theft
In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept
And suckd the honey which thy chaste bee kept

Yet am I guilty of thy honours wrack
Yet for thy honour did I entertain him
Coming from thee I could not put him back
For it had been dishonour to disdain him
Besides of weariness he did complain him
And talkd of virtue O unlookdfor evil
When virtue is profaned in such a devil

Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud
Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows nests
Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud
Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts
Or kings be breakers of their own behests
But no perfection is so absolute
That some impurity doth not pollute

The aged man that coffersup his gold
Is plagued with cramps and gouts and painful fits
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold
But like stillpining Tantalus he sits
And useless barns the harvest of his wits
Having no other pleasure of his gain
But torment that it cannot cure his pain

So then he hath it when he cannot use it
And leaves it to be masterd by his young
Who in their pride do presently abuse it
Their father was too weak and they too strong
To hold their cursedblessed fortune long
The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours
Even in the moment that we call them ours

Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers
The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing
What virtue breeds iniquity devours
We have no good that we can say is ours
But illannexed Opportunity
Or kills his life or else his quality

O Opportunity thy guilt is great
Tis thou that executest the traitors treason
Thou setst the wolf where he the lamb may get
Whoever plots the sin thou pointst the season
Tis thou that spurnst at right at law at reason
And in thy shady cell where none may spy him
Sits Sin to seize the souls that wander by him

Thou makest the vestal violate her oath
Thou blowst the fire when temperance is thawd
Thou smotherst honesty thou murderst troth
Thou foul abettor thou notorious bawd
Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud
Thou ravisher thou traitor thou false thief
Thy honey turns to gall thy joy to grief

Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame
Thy private feasting to a public fast
Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name
Thy sugard tongue to bitter wormwood taste
Thy violent vanities can never last
How comes it then vile Opportunity
Being so bad such numbers seek for thee

When wilt thou be the humble suppliants friend
And bring him where his suit may be obtaind
When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end
Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chaind
Give physic to the sick ease to the paind
The poor lame blind halt creep cry out for thee
But they neer meet with Opportunity

The patient dies while the physician sleeps
The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps
Advice is sporting while infection breeds
Thou grantst no time for charitable deeds
Wrath envy treason rape and murders rages
Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages

When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee
A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid
They buy thy help but Sin neer gives a fee
He gratis comes and thou art well appaid
As well to hear as grant what he hath said
My Collatine would else have come to me
When Tarquin did but he was stayd by thee

Guilty thou art of murder and of theft
Guilty of perjury and subornation
Guilty of treason forgery and shift
Guilty of incest that abomination
An accessary by thine inclination
To all sins past and all that are to come
From the creation to the general doom

Misshapen Time copesmate of ugly Night
Swift subtle post carrier of grisly care
Eater of youth false slave to false delight
Base watch of woes sins packhorse virtues snare
Thou nursest all and murderst all that are
O hear me then injurious shifting Time
Be guilty of my death since of my crime

Why hath thy servant Opportunity
Betrayd the hours thou gavest me to repose
Cancelld my fortunes and enchained me
To endless date of neverending woes
Times office is to fine the hate of foes
To eat up errors by opinion bred
Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed

Times glory is to calm contending kings
To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light
To stamp the seal of time in aged things
To wake the morn and sentinel the night
To wrong the wronger till he render right
To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours
And smear with dust their glittering golden towers

To fill with wormholes stately monuments
To feed oblivion with decay of things
To blot old books and alter their contents
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens wings
To dry the old oaks sap and cherish springs
To spoil antiquities of hammerd steel
And turn the giddy round of Fortunes wheel

To show the beldam daughters of her daughter
To make the child a man the man a child
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter
To tame the unicorn and lion wild
To mock the subtle in themselves beguiled
To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops
And waste huge stones with little water drops

Why workst thou mischief in thy pilgrimage
Unless thou couldst return to make amends
One poor retiring minute in an age
Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends
Lending him wit that to bad debtors lends
O this dread night wouldst thou one hour come back
I could prevent this storm and shun thy wrack

Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity
With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight
Devise extremes beyond extremity
To make him curse this cursed crimeful night
Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright
And the dire thought of his committed evil
Shape every bush a hideous shapeless devil

Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances
Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans
Let there bechance him pitiful mischances
To make him moan but pity not his moans
Stone him with hardend hearts harder than stones
And let mild women to him lose their mildness
Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness

Let him have time to tear his curled hair
Let him have time against himself to rave
Let him have time of Times help to despair
Let him have time to live a loathed slave
Let him have time a beggars orts to crave
And time to see one that by alms doth live
Disdain to him disdained scraps to give

Let him have time to see his friends his foes
And merry fools to mock at him resort
Let him have time to mark how slow time goes
In time of sorrow and how swift and short
His time of folly and his time of sport
And ever let his unrecalling crime
Have time to wail th abusing of his time

O Time thou tutor both to good and bad
Teach me to curse him that thou taughtst this ill
At his own shadow let the thief run mad
Himself himself seek every hour to kill
Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill
For who so base would such an office have
As slanderous deathsman to so base a slave

The baser is he coming from a king
To shame his hope with deeds degenerate
The mightier man the mightier is the thing
That makes him honourd or begets him hate
For greatest scandal waits on greatest state
The moon being clouded presently is missd
But little stars may hide them when they list

The crow may bathe his coalblack wings in mire
And unperceived fly with the filth away
But if the like the snowwhite swan desire
The stain upon his silver down will stay
Poor grooms are sightless night kings glorious day
Gnats are unnoted wheresoeer they fly
But eagles gazed upon with every eye

Out idle words servants to shallow fools
Unprofitable sounds weak arbitrators
Busy yourselves in skillcontending schools
Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters
To trembling clients be you mediators
For me I force not argument a straw
Since that my case is past the help of law

In vain I rail at Opportunity
At Time at Tarquin and uncheerful Night
In vain I cavil with mine infamy
In vain I spurn at my confirmd despite
This helpless smoke of words doth me no right
The remedy indeed to do me good
Is to let forth my fouldefiled blood

Poor hand why quiverst thou at this decree
Honour thyself to rid me of this shame
For if I die my honour lives in thee
But if I live thou livest in my defame
Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame
And wast afeard to scratch her wicked foe
Kill both thyself and her for yielding so

This said from her betumbled couch she starteth
To find some desperate instrument of death
But this no slaughterhouse no tool imparteth
To make more vent for passage of her breath
Which thronging through her lips so vanisheth
As smoke from AEtna that in air consumes
Or that which from discharged cannon fumes

In vain quoth she I live and seek in vain
Some happy mean to end a hapless life
I feard by Tarquins falchion to be slain
Yet for the selfsame purpose seek a knife
But when I feard I was a loyal wife
So am I now O no that cannot be
Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me

O that is gone for which I sought to live
And therefore now I need not fear to die
To clear this spot by death at least I give
A badge of fame to slanders livery
A dying life to living infamy
Poor helpless help the treasure stoln away
To burn the guiltless casket where it lay

Well well dear Collatine thou shalt not know
The stained taste of violated troth
I will not wrong thy true affection so
To flatter thee with an infringed oath
This bastard graff shall never come to growth
He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute
That thou art doting father of his fruit

Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought
Nor laugh with his companions at thy state
But thou shalt know thy interest was not bought
Basely with gold but stoln from forth thy gate
For me I am the mistress of my fate
And with my trespass never will dispense
Till life to death acquit my forced offence

I will not poison thee with my attaint
Nor fold my fault in cleanlycoind excuses
My sable ground of sin I will not paint
To hide the truth of this false nights abuses
My tongue shall utter all mine eyes like sluices
As from a mountainspring that feeds a dale
Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale

By this lamenting Philomel had ended
The welltuned warble of her nightly sorrow
And solemn night with slow sad gait descended
To ugly hell when lo the blushing morrow
Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow
But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see
And therefore still in night would cloisterd be

Revealing day through every cranny spies
And seems to point her out where she sits weeping
To whom she sobbing speaks O eye of eyes
Why pryst thou through my window leave thy peeping
Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping
Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light
For day hath nought to do whats done by night

Thus cavils she with every thing she sees
True grief is fond and testy as a child
Who wayward once his mood with nought agrees
Old woes not infant sorrows bear them mild
Continuance tames the one the other wild
Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still
With too much labour drowns for want of skill

So she deepdrenched in a sea of care
Holds disputation with each thing she views
And to herself all sorrow doth compare
No object but her passions strength renews
And as one shifts another straight ensues
Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words
Sometime tis mad and too much talk affords

The little birds that tune their mornings joy
Make her moans mad with their sweet melody
For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy
Sad souls are slain in merry company
Grief best is pleased with griefs society
True sorrow then is feelingly sufficed
When with like semblance it is sympathized

Tis double death to drown in ken of shore
He ten times pines that pines beholding food
To see the salve doth make the wound ache more
Great grief grieves most at that would do it good
Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood
Who being stoppd the bounding banks oerflows
Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows

You mockingbirds quoth she your tunes entomb
Within your hollowswelling featherd breasts
And in my hearing be you mute and dumb
My restless discord loves no stops nor rests
A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests
Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears
Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears

Come Philomel that singst of ravishment
Make thy sad grove in my dishevelld hair
As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment
So I at each sad strain will strain a tear
And with deep groans the diapason bear
For burdenwise Ill hum on Tarquin still
While thou on Tereus descantst better skill

And whiles against a thorn thou bearst thy part
To keep thy sharp woes waking wretched I
To imitate thee well against my heart
Will fix a sharp knife to affright mine eye
Who if it wink shall thereon fall and die
These means as frets upon an instrument
Shall tune our heartstrings to true languishment

And for poor bird thou singst not in the day
As shaming any eye should thee behold
Some dark deep desert seated from the way
That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold
Will we find out and there we will unfold
To creatures stern sad tunes to change their kinds
Since men prove beasts let beasts bear gentle minds

As the poor frighted deer that stands at gaze
Wildly determining which way to fly
Or one encompassd with a winding maze
That cannot tread the way out readily
So with herself is she in mutiny
To live or die which of the twain were better
When life is shamed and death reproachs debtor

To kill myself quoth she alack what were it
But with my body my poor souls pollution
They that lose half with greater patience bear it
Than they whose whole is swallowd in confusion
That mother tries a merciless conclusion
Who having two sweet babes when death takes one
Will slay the other and be nurse to none

My body or my soul which was the dearer
When the one pure the other made divine
Whose love of either to myself was nearer
When both were kept for heaven and Collatine
Ay me the bark peeld from the lofty pine
His leaves will wither and his sap decay
So must my soul her bark being peeld away

Her house is sackd her quiet interrupted
Her mansion batterd by the enemy
Her sacred temple spotted spoild corrupted
Grossly engirt with daring infamy
Then let it not be calld impiety
If in this blemishd fort I make some hole
Through which I may convey this troubled soul

Yet die I will not till my Collatine
Have heard the cause of my untimely death
That he may vow in that sad hour of mine
Revenge on him that made me stop my breath
My stained blood to Tarquin Ill bequeath
Which by him tainted shall for him be spent
And as his due writ in my testament

My honour Ill bequeath unto the knife
That wounds my body so dishonoured
Tis honour to deprive dishonourd life
The one will live the other being dead
So of shames ashes shall my fame be bred
For in my death I murder shameful scorn
My shame so dead mine honour is newborn

Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost
What legacy shall I bequeath to thee
My resolution love shall be thy boast
By whose example thou revenged mayest be
How Tarquin must be used read it in me
Myself thy friend will kill myself thy foe
And for my sake serve thou false Tarquin so

This brief abridgement of my will I make
My soul and body to the skies and ground
My resolution husband do thou take
Mine honour be the knifes that makes my wound
My shame be his that did my fame confound
And all my fame that lives disbursed be
To those that live and think no shame of me

Thou Collatine shalt oversee this will
How was I overseen that thou shalt see it
My blood shall wash the slander of mine ill
My lifes foul deed my lifes fair end shall free it
Faint not faint heart but stoutly say So be it
Yield to my hand my hand shall conquer thee
Thou dead both die and both shall victors be

This Plot of death when sadly she had laid
And wiped the brinish pearl from her bright eyes
With untuned tongue she hoarsely calls her maid
Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies
For fleetwingd duty with thoughts feathers flies
Poor Lucrece cheeks unto her maid seem so
As winter meads when sun doth melt their snow

Her mistress she doth give demure goodmorrow
With softslow tongue true mark of modesty
And sorts a sad look to her ladys sorrow
For why her face wore sorrows livery
But durst not ask of her audaciously
Why her two suns were cloudeclipsed so
Nor why her fair cheeks overwashd with woe

But as the earth doth weep the sun being set
Each flower moistend like a melting eye
Even so the maid with swelling drops gan wet
Her circled eyne enforced by sympathy
Of those fair suns set in her mistress sky
Who in a saltwaved ocean quench their light
Which makes the maid weep like the dewy night

A pretty while these pretty creatures stand
Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling
One justly weeps the other takes in hand
No cause but company of her drops spilling
Their gentle sex to weep are often willing
Grieving themselves to guess at others smarts
And then they drown their eyes or break their hearts

For men have marble women waxen minds
And therefore are they formd as marble will
The weak oppressd the impression of strange kinds
Is formd in them by force by fraud or skill
Then call them not the authors of their ill
No more than wax shall be accounted evil
Wherein is stampd the semblance of a devil

Their smoothness like a goodly champaign plain
Lays open all the little worms that creep
In men as in a roughgrown grove remain
Cavekeeping evils that obscurely sleep
Through crystal walls each little mote will peep
Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks
Poor womens faces are their own faults books

No man inveigh against the witherd flower
But chide rough winter that the flower hath killd
Not that devourd but that which doth devour
Is worthy blame O let it not be hild
Poor womens faults that they are so fulfilld
With mens abuses those proud lords to blame
Make weakmade women tenants to their shame

The precedent whereof in Lucrece view
Assaild by night with circumstances strong
Of present death and shame that might ensue
By that her death to do her husband wrong
Such danger to resistance did belong
That dying fear through all her body spread
And who cannot abuse a body dead

By this mild patience bid fair Lucrece speak
To the poor counterfeit of her complaining
My girl quoth she on what occasion break
Those tears from thee that down thy cheeks are
raining
If thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining
Know gentle wench it small avails my mood
If tears could help mine own would do me good

But tell me girl when wentand there she stayd
Till after a deep groanTarquin from hence
Madam ere I was up replied the maid
The more to blame my sluggard negligence
Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense
Myself was stirring ere the break of day
And ere I rose was Tarquin gone away

But lady if your maid may be so bold
She would request to know your heaviness
O peace quoth Lucrece if it should be told
The repetition cannot make it less
For more it is than I can well express
And that deep torture may be calld a hell
When more is felt than one hath power to tell

Go get me hither paper ink and pen
Yet save that labour for I have them here
What should I say One of my husbands men
Bid thou be ready by and by to bear
A letter to my lord my love my dear
Bid him with speed prepare to carry it
The cause craves haste and it will soon be writ

Her maid is gone and she prepares to write
First hovering oer the paper with her quill
Conceit and grief an eager combat fight
What wit sets down is blotted straight with will
This is too curiousgood this blunt and ill
Much like a press of people at a door
Throng her inventions which shall go before

At last she thus begins Thou worthy lord
Of that unworthy wife that greeteth thee
Health to thy person next vouchsafe t afford
If ever love thy Lucrece thou wilt see
Some present speed to come and visit me
So I commend me from our house in grief
My woes are tedious though my words are brief

Here folds she up the tenor of her woe
Her certain sorrow writ uncertainly
By this short schedule Collatine may know
Her grief but not her griefs true quality
She dares not thereof make discovery
Lest he should hold it her own gross abuse
Ere she with blood had staind her staind excuse

Besides the life and feeling of her passion
She hoards to spend when he is by to hear her
When sighs and groans and tears may grace the fashion
Of her disgrace the better so to clear her
From that suspicion which the world might bear her
To shun this blot she would not blot the letter
With words till action might become them better

To see sad sights moves more than hear them told
For then eye interprets to the ear
The heavy motion that it doth behold
When every part a part of woe doth bear
Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear
Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords
And sorrow ebbs being blown with wind of words

Her letter now is seald and on it writ
At Ardea to my lord with more than haste
The post attends and she delivers it
Charging the sourfaced groom to hie as fast
As lagging fowls before the northern blast
Speed more than speed but dull and slow she deems
Extremity still urgeth such extremes

The homely villain courtsies to her low
And blushing on her with a steadfast eye
Receives the scroll without or yea or no
And forth with bashful innocence doth hie
But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie
Imagine every eye beholds their blame
For Lucrece thought he blushd to her see shame

When silly groom God wot it was defect
Of spirit Life and bold audacity
Such harmless creatures have a true respect
To talk in deeds while others saucily
Promise more speed but do it leisurely
Even so this pattern of the wornout age
Pawnd honest looks but laid no words to gage

His kindled duty kindled her mistrust
That two red fires in both their faces blazed
She thought he blushd as knowing Tarquins lust
And blushing with him wistly on him gazed
Her earnest eye did make him more amazed
The more she saw the blood his cheeks replenish
The more she thought he spied in her some blemish

But long she thinks till he return again
And yet the duteous vassal scarce is gone
The weary time she cannot entertain
For now tis stale to sigh to weep and groan
So woe hath wearied woe moan tired moan
That she her plaints a little while doth stay
Pausing for means to mourn some newer way

At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece
Of skilful painting made for Priams Troy
Before the which is drawn the power of Greece
For Helens rape the city to destroy
Threatening cloudkissing Ilion with annoy
Which the conceited painter drew so proud
As heaven it seemd to kiss the turrets bowd

A thousand lamentable objects there
In scorn of nature art gave lifeless life
Many a dry drop seemd a weeping tear
Shed for the slaughterd husband by the wife
The red blood reekd to show the painters strife
And dying eyes gleamd forth their ashy lights
Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights

There might you see the labouring pioner
Begrimed with sweat and smeared all with dust
And from the towers of Troy there would appear
The very eyes of men through loopholes thrust
Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust
Such sweet observance in this work was had
That one might see those faroff eyes look sad

In great commanders grace and majesty
You might behold triumphing in their faces
In youth quick bearing and dexterity
Pale cowards marching on with trembling paces
Which heartless peasants did so well resemble
That one would swear he saw them quake and tremble

In Ajax and Ulysses O what art
Of physiognomy might one behold
The face of either cipherd eithers heart
Their face their manners most expressly told
In Ajax eyes blunt rage and rigor rolld
But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent
Showd deep regard and smiling government

There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand
As twere encouraging the Greeks to fight
Making such sober action with his hand
That it beguiled attention charmd the sight
In speech it seemd his beard all silver white
Waggd up and down and from his lips did fly
Thin winding breath which purld up to the sky

About him were a press of gaping faces
Which seemd to swallow up his sound advice
All jointly listening but with several graces
As if some mermaid did their ears entice
Some high some low the painter was so nice
The scalps of many almost hid behind
To jump up higher seemd to mock the mind

Here one mans hand leand on anothers head
His nose being shadowd by his neighbours ear
Here one being throngd bears back all bolln and
red
Another smotherd seems to pelt and swear
And in their rage such signs of rage they bear
As but for loss of Nestors golden words
It seemd they would debate with angry swords

For much imaginary work was there
Conceit deceitful so compact so kind
That for Achilles image stood his spear
Griped in an armed hand himself behind
Was left unseen save to the eye of mind
A hand a foot a face a leg a head
Stood for the whole to be imagined

And from the walls of strongbesieged Troy
When their brave hope bold Hector marchd to
field
Stood many Trojan mothers sharing joy
To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield
And to their hope they such odd action yield
That through their light joy seemed to appear
Like bright things staind a kind of heavy fear

And from the strand of Dardan where they fought
To Simois reedy banks the red blood ran
Whose waves to imitate the battle sought
With swelling ridges and their ranks began
To break upon the galled shore and than
Retire again till meeting greater ranks
They join and shoot their foam at Simois banks

To this wellpainted piece is Lucrece come
To find a face where all distress is stelld
Many she sees where cares have carved some
But none where all distress and dolour dwelld
Till she despairing Hecuba beheld
Staring on Priams wounds with her old eyes
Which bleeding under Pyrrhus proud foot lies

In her the painter had anatomized
Times ruin beautys wreck and grim cares reign
Her cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were disguised
Of what she was no semblance did remain
Her blue blood changed to black in every vein
Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed
Showd life imprisond in a body dead

On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes
And shapes her sorrow to the beldams woes
Who nothing wants to answer her but cries
And bitter words to ban her cruel foes
The painter was no god to lend her those
And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong
To give her so much grief and not a tongue

Poor instrument quoth shewithout a sound
Ill tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue
And drop sweet balm in Priams painted wound
And rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong
And with my tears quench Troy that burns so long
And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes
Of all the Greeks that are thine enemies

Show me the strumpet that began this stir
That with my nails her beauty I may tear
Thy heat of lust fond Paris did incur
This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear
Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here
And here in Troy for trespass of thine eye
The sire the son the dame and daughter die

Why should the private pleasure of some one
Become the public plague of many moe
Let sin alone committed light alone
Upon his head that hath transgressed so
Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe
For ones offence why should so many fall
To plague a private sin in general

Lo here weeps Hecuba here Priam dies
Here manly Hector faints here Troilus swounds
Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies
And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds
And one mans lust these many lives confounds
Had doting Priam chequed his sons desire
Troy had been bright with fame and not with fire

Here feelingly she weeps Troys painted woes
For sorrow like a heavyhanging bell
Once set on ringing with his own weight goes
Then little strength rings out the doleful knell
So Lucrece set awork sad tales doth tell
To pencilld pensiveness and colourd sorrow
She lends them words and she their looks doth borrow

She throws her eyes about the painting round
And whom she finds forlorn she doth lament
At last she sees a wretched image bound
That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent
His face though full of cares yet showd content
Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes
So mild that Patience seemd to scorn his woes

In him the painter labourd with his skill
To hide deceit and give the harmless show
An humble gait calm looks eyes wailing still
A brow unbent that seemd to welcome woe
Cheeks neither red nor pale but mingled so
That blushing red no guilty instance gave
Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have

But like a constant and confirmed devil
He entertaind a show so seeming just
And therein so ensconced his secret evil
That jealousy itself could not mistrust
Falsecreeping craft and perjury should thrust
Into so bright a day such blackfaced storms
Or blot with hellborn sin such saintlike forms

The wellskilld workman this mild image drew
For perjured Sinon whose enchanting story
The credulous old Priam after slew
Whose words like wildfire burnt the shining glory
Of richbuilt Ilion that the skies were sorry
And little stars shot from their fixed places
When their glass fell wherein they viewd their faces

This picture she advisedly perused
And chid the painter for his wondrous skill
Saying some shape in Sinons was abused
So fair a form lodged not a mind so ill
And still on him she gazed and gazing still
Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied
That she concludes the picture was belied

It cannot be quoth shethat so much guile
She would have said can lurk in such a look
But Tarquins shape came in her mind the while
And from her tongue can lurk from cannot took
It cannot be she in that sense forsook
And turnd it thus It cannot be I find
But such a face should bear a wicked mind

For even as subtle Sinon here is painted
So sobersad so weary and so mild
As if with grief or travail he had fainted
To me came Tarquin armed so beguiled
With outward honesty but yet defiled
With inward vice as Priam him did cherish
So did I Tarquin so my Troy did perish

Look look how listening Priam wets his eyes
To see those borrowd tears that Sinon sheds
Priam why art thou old and yet not wise
For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds
His eye drops fire no water thence proceeds
Those round clear pearls of his that move thy pity
Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city

Such devils steal effects from lightless hell
For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold
And in that cold hotburning fire doth dwell
These contraries such unity do hold
Only to flatter fools and make them bold
So Priams trust false Sinons tears doth flatter
That he finds means to burn his Troy with water

Here all enraged such passion her assails
That patience is quite beaten from her breast
She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails
Comparing him to that unhappy guest
Whose deed hath made herself herself detest
At last she smilingly with this gives oer
Fool fool quoth she his wounds will not be sore

Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow
And time doth weary time with her complaining
She looks for night and then she longs for morrow
And both she thinks too long with her remaining
Short time seems long in sorrows sharp sustaining
Though woe be heavy yet it seldom sleeps
And they that watch see time how slow it creeps

Which all this time hath overslippd her thought
That she with painted images hath spent
Being from the feeling of her own grief brought
By deep surmise of others detriment
Losing her woes in shows of discontent
It easeth some though none it ever cured
To think their dolour others have endured

But now the mindful messenger come back
Brings home his lord and other company
Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black
And round about her tearstained eye
Blue circles streamd like rainbows in the sky
These watergalls in her dim element
Foretell new storms to those already spent

Which when her sadbeholding husband saw
Amazedly in her sad face he stares
Her eyes though sod in tears lookd red and raw
Her lively colour killd with deadly cares
He hath no power to ask her how she fares
Both stood like old acquaintance in a trance
Met far from home wondering each others chance

At last he takes her by the bloodless hand
And thus begins What uncouth ill event
Hath thee befalln that thou dost trembling stand
Sweet love what spite hath thy fair colour spent
Why art thou thus attired in discontent
Unmask dear dear this moody heaviness
And tell thy grief that we may give redress

Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire
Ere once she can discharge one word of woe
At length addressd to answer his desire
She modestly prepares to let them know
Her honour is taen prisoner by the foe
While Collatine and his consorted lords
With sad attention long to hear her words

And now this pale swan in her watery nest
Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending
Few words quoth she Shall fit the trespass best
Where no excuse can give the fault amending
In me moe woes than words are now depending
And my laments would be drawn out too long
To tell them all with one poor tired tongue

Then be this all the task it hath to say
Dear husband in the interest of thy bed
A stranger came and on that pillow lay
Where thou was wont to rest thy weary head
And what wrong else may be imagined
By foul enforcement might be done to me
From that alas thy Lucrece is not free

For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight
With shining falchion in my chamber came
A creeping creature with a flaming light
And softly cried Awake thou Roman dame
And entertain my love else lasting shame
On thee and thine this night I will inflict
If thou my loves desire do contradict

 For some hardfavourd groom of thine quoth he
Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will
Ill murder straight and then Ill slaughter thee
And swear I found you where you did fulfil
The loathsome act of lust and so did kill
The lechers in their deed this act will be
My fame and thy perpetual infamy

With this I did begin to start and cry
And then against my heart he sets his sword
Swearing unless I took all patiently
I should not live to speak another word
So should my shame still rest upon record
And never be forgot in mighty Rome
Th adulterate death of Lucrece and her groom

Mine enemy was strong my poor self weak
And far the weaker with so strong a fear
My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak
No rightful plea might plead for justice there
His scarlet lust came evidence to swear
That my poor beauty had purloind his eyes
And when the judge is robbd the prisoner dies

O teach me how to make mine own excuse
Or at the least this refuge let me find
Though my gross blood be staind with this abuse
Immaculate and spotless is my mind
That was not forced that never was inclined
To accessary yieldings but still pure
Doth in her poisond closet yet endure

Lo here the hopeless merchant of this loss
With head declined and voice dammd up with woe
With sad set eyes and wretched arms across
From lips newwaxen pale begins to blow
The grief away that stops his answer so
But wretched as he is he strives in vain
What he breathes out his breath drinks up again

As through an arch the violent roaring tide
Outruns the eye that doth behold his haste
Yet in the eddy boundeth in his pride
Back to the strait that forced him on so fast
In rage sent out recalld in rage being past
Even so his sighs his sorrows make a saw
To push grief on and back the same grief draw

Which speechless woe of his poor she attendeth
And his untimely frenzy thus awaketh
Dear lord thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth
Another power no flood by raining slaketh
My woe too sensible thy passion maketh
More feelingpainful let it then suffice
To drown one woe one pair of weeping eyes

And for my sake when I might charm thee so
For she that was thy Lucrece now attend me
Be suddenly revenged on my foe
Thine mine his own suppose thou dost defend me
From what is past the help that thou shalt lend me
Comes all too late yet let the traitor die
For sparing justice feeds iniquity

But ere I name him you fair lords quoth she
Speaking to those that came with Collatine
Shall plight your honourable faiths to me
With swift pursuit to venge this wrong of mine
For tis a meritorious fair design
To chase injustice with revengeful arms
Knights by their oaths should right poor ladies harms

At this request with noble disposition
Each present lord began to promise aid
As bound in knighthood to her imposition
Longing to hear the hateful foe bewrayd
But she that yet her sad task hath not said
The protestation stops O speak  quoth she
How may this forced stain be wiped from me

What is the quality of mine offence
Being constraind with dreadful circumstance
May my pure mind with the foul act dispense
My lowdeclined honour to advance
May any terms acquit me from this chance
The poisond fountain clears itself again
And why not I from this compelled stain

With this they all at once began to say
Her bodys stain her mind untainted clears
While with a joyless smile she turns away
The face that map which deep impression bears
Of hard misfortune carved in it with tears
No no quoth she no dame hereafter living
By my excuse shall claim excuses giving

Here with a sigh as if her heart would break
She throws forth Tarquins name He he she says
But more than he her poor tongue could not speak
Till after many accents and delays
Untimely breathings sick and short assays
She utters this He he fair lords tis he
That guides this hand to give this wound to me

Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast
A harmful knife that thence her soul unsheathed
That blow did that it from the deep unrest
Of that polluted prison where it breathed
Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeathd
Her winged sprite and through her wounds doth fly
Lifes lasting date from cancelld destiny

Stonestill astonishd with this deadly deed
Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew
Till Lucrece father that beholds her bleed
Himself on her selfslaughterd body threw
And from the purple fountain Brutus drew
The murderous knife and as it left the place
Her blood in poor revenge held it in chase

And bubbling from her breast it doth divide
In two slow rivers that the crimson blood
Circles her body in on every side
Who like a latesackd island vastly stood
Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood
Some of her blood still pure and red remaind
And some lookd black and that false Tarquin staind

About the mourning and congealed face
Of that black blood a watery rigol goes
Which seems to weep upon the tainted place
And ever since as pitying Lucrece woes
Corrupted blood some watery token shows
And blood untainted still doth red abide
Blushing at that which is so putrified

Daughter dear daughter old Lucretius cries
That life was mine which thou hast here deprived
If in the child the fathers image lies
Where shall I live now Lucrece is unlived
Thou wast not to this end from me derived
If children predecease progenitors
We are their offspring and they none of ours

Poor broken glass I often did behold
In thy sweet semblance my old age new born
But now that fresh fair mirror dim and old
Shows me a bareboned death by time outworn
O from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn
And shivered all the beauty of my glass
That I no more can see what once I was

O time cease thou thy course and last no longer
If they surcease to be that should survive
Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger
And leave the faltering feeble souls alive
The old bees die the young possess their hive
Then live sweet Lucrece live again and see
Thy father die and not thy father thee

By this starts Collatine as from a dream
And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place
And then in keycold Lucrece bleeding stream
He falls and bathes the pale fear in his face
And counterfeits to die with her a space
Till manly shame bids him possess his breath
And live to be revenged on her death

The deep vexation of his inward soul
Hath served a dumb arrest upon his tongue
Who mad that sorrow should his use control
Or keep him from hearteasing words so long
Begins to talk but through his lips do throng
Weak words so thick come in his poor hearts aid
That no man could distinguish what he said

Yet sometime Tarquin was pronounced plain
But through his teeth as if the name he tore
This windy tempest till it blow up rain
Held back his sorrows tide to make it more
At last it rains and busy winds give oer
Then son and father weep with equal strife
Who should weep most for daughter or for wife

The one doth call her his the other his
Yet neither may possess the claim they lay
The father says Shes mine O mine she is
Replies her husband do not take away
My sorrows interest let no mourner say
He weeps for her for she was only mine
And only must be waild by Collatine

O quoth Lucretius I did give that life
Which she too early and too late hath spilld
Woe woe quoth Collatine she was my wife
I owed her and tis mine that she hath killd
My daughter and my wife with clamours filld
The dispersed air who holding Lucrece life
Answerd their cries my daughter and my wife

Brutus who pluckd the knife from Lucrece side
Seeing such emulation in their woe
Began to clothe his wit in state and pride
Burying in Lucrece wound his follys show
He with the Romans was esteemed so
As sillyjeering idiots are with kings
For sportive words and uttering foolish things

But now he throws that shallow habit by
Wherein deep policy did him disguise
And armd his longhid wits advisedly
To cheque the tears in Collatinus eyes
Thou wronged lord of Rome quoth be arise
Let my unsounded self supposed a fool
Now set thy longexperienced wit to school

Why Collatine is woe the cure for woe
Do wounds help wounds or grief help grievous deeds
Is it revenge to give thyself a blow
For his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds
Such childish humour from weak minds proceeds
Thy wretched wife mistook the matter so
To slay herself that should have slain her foe

Courageous Roman do not steep thy heart
In such relenting dew of lamentations
But kneel with me and help to bear thy part
To rouse our Roman gods with invocations
That they will suffer these abominations
Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgraced
By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chased

Now by the Capitol that we adore
And by this chaste blood so unjustly staind
By heavens fair sun that breeds the fat earths
store
By all our country rights in Rome maintaind
And by chaste Lucrece soul that late complaind
Her wrongs to us and by this bloody knife
We will revenge the death of this true wife

This said he struck his hand upon his breast
And kissd the fatal knife to end his vow
And to his protestation urged the rest
Who wondering at him did his words allow
Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow
And that deep vow which Brutus made before
He doth again repeat and that they swore

When they had sworn to this advised doom
They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence
To show her bleeding body thorough Rome
And so to publish Tarquins foul offence
Which being done with speedy diligence
The Romans plausibly did give consent
To Tarquins everlasting banishment



	END



	THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM



I

WHEN my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her though I know she lies
That she might think me some untutord youth
Unskilful in the worlds false forgeries
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young
Although I know my years be past the best
I smiling credit her falsespeaking tongue
Outfacing faults in love with loves ill rest
But wherefore says my love that she is young
And wherefore say not I that I am old
O loves best habit is a soothing tongue
And age in love loves not to have years told
Therefore Ill lie with love and love with me
Since that our faults in love thus smotherd be


II

Two loves I have of comfort and despair
That like two spirits do suggest me still
My better angel is a man right fair
My worser spirit a woman colourd ill
To win me soon to hell my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil
Wooing his purity with her fair pride
And whether that my angel be turnd fiend
Suspect I may yet not directly tell
For being both to me both to each friend
I guess one angel in anothers hell
The truth I shall not know but live in doubt
Till my bad angel fire my good one out


III

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye
Gainst whom the world could not hold argument
Persuade my heart to this false perjury
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment
A woman I forswore but I will prove
Thou being a goddess I forswore not thee
My vow was earthly thou a heavenly love
Thy grace being gaind cures all disgrace in me
My vow was breath and breath a vapour is
Then thou fair sun that on this earth doth shine
Exhale this vapour vow in thee it is
If broken then it is no fault of mine
If by me broke what fool is not so wise
To break an oath to win a paradise


IV

Sweet Cytherea sitting by a brook
With young Adonis lovely fresh and green
Did court the lad with many a lovely look
Such looks as none could look but beautys queen
She told him stories to delight his ear
She showed him favors to allure his eye
To win his heart she touchd him here and there
Touches so soft still conquer chastity
But whether unripe years did want conceit
Or he refused to take her figured proffer
The tender nibbler would not touch the bait
But smile and jest at every gentle offer
Then fell she on her back fair queen and toward
He rose and ran away ah fool too froward


V

If love make me forsworn how shall I swear to love
O never faith could hold if not to beauty vowd
Though to myself forsworn to thee Ill constant prove
Those thoughts to me like oaks to thee like osiers bowd
Study his bias leaves and makes his book thine eyes
Where all those pleasures live that art can comprehend
If knowledge be the mark to know thee shall suffice
Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend
All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder
Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire
Thine eye Joves lightning seems thy voice his dreadful
thunder
Which not to anger bent is music and sweet fire
Celestial as thou art O do not love that wrong
To sing heavens praise with such an earthly tongue


VI

Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn
And scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade
When Cytherea all in love forlorn
A longing tarriance for Adonis made
Under an osier growing by a brook
A brook where Adon used to cool his spleen
Hot was the day she hotter that did look
For his approach that often there had been
Anon he comes and throws his mantle by
And stood stark naked on the brooks green brim
The sun lookd on the world with glorious eye
Yet not so wistly as this queen on him
He spying her bounced in whereas he stood
O Jove quoth she why was not I a flood


VII

Fair is my love but not so fair as fickle
Mild as a dove but neither true nor trusty
Brighter than glass and yet as glass is brittle
Softer than wax and yet as iron rusty
A lily pale with damask dye to grace her
None fairer nor none falser to deface her

Her lips to mine how often hath she joined
Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing
How many tales to please me hath she coined
Dreading my love the loss thereof still fearing
Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings
Her faith her oaths her tears and all were jestings

She burnd with love as straw with fire flameth
She burnd out love as soon as straw outburneth
She framed the love and yet she foild the framing
She bade love last and yet she fell aturning
Was this a lover or a lecher whether
Bad in the best though excellent in neither


VIII

If music and sweet poetry agree
As they must needs the sister and the brother
Then must the love be great twixt thee and me
Because thou lovest the one and I the other
Dowland to thee is dear whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense
Spenser to me whose deep conceit is such
As passing all conceit needs no defence
Thou lovest to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus lute the queen of music makes
And I in deep delight am chiefly drownd
When as himself to singing he betakes
One god is god of both as poets feign
One knight loves both and both in thee remain


IX

Fair was the morn when the fair queen of love
		   
Paler for sorrow than her milkwhite dove
For Adons sake a youngster proud and wild
Her stand she takes upon a steepup hill
Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds
She silly queen with more than loves good will
Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds
Once quoth she did I see a fair sweet youth
Here in these brakes deepwounded with a boar
Deep in the thigh a spectacle of ruth
See in my thigh quoth she here was the sore
She showed hers he saw more wounds than one
And blushing fled and left her all alone


X

Sweet rose fair flower untimely pluckd soon vaded
Pluckd in the bud and vaded in the spring
Bright orient pearl alack too timely shaded
Fair creature killd too soon by deaths sharp sting
Like a green plum that hangs upon a tree
And falls through wind before the fall should be

I weep for thee and yet no cause I have
For why thou leftst me nothing in thy will
And yet thou leftst me more than I did crave
For why I craved nothing of thee still
O yes dear friend I pardon crave of thee
Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me


XI

Venus with young Adonis sitting by her
Under a myrtle shade began to woo him
She told the youngling how god Mars did try her
And as he fell to her so fell she to him
Even thus quoth she the warlike god embraced me
And then she clippd Adonis in her arms
Even thus quoth she the warlike god unlaced me
As if the boy should use like loving charms
Even thus quoth she he seized on my lips
And with her lips on his did act the seizure
And as she fetched breath away he skips
And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure
Ah that I had my lady at this bay
To kiss and clip me till I run away


XII

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together
Youth is full of pleasance age is full of care
Youth like summer morn age like winter weather
Youth like summer brave age like winter bare
Youth is full of sport ages breath is short
Youth is nimble age is lame
Youth is hot and bold age is weak and cold
Youth is wild and age is tame
Age I do abhor thee youth I do adore thee
O my love my love is young
Age I do defy thee O sweet shepherd hie thee
For methinks thou stayst too long


XIII

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good
A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly
A flower that dies when first it gins to bud
A brittle glass thats broken presently
A doubtful good a gloss a glass a flower
Lost vaded broken dead within an hour

And as goods lost are seld or never found
As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh
As flowers dead lie witherd on the ground
As broken glass no cement can redress
So beauty blemishd onces for ever lost
In spite of physic painting pain and cost


XIV

Good night good rest Ah neither be my share
She bade good night that kept my rest away
And daffd me to a cabin hangd with care
To descant on the doubts of my decay
Farewell quoth she and come again tomorrow
Fare well I could not for I suppd with sorrow

Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile
In scorn or friendship nill I construe whether
T may be she joyd to jest at my exile
T may be again to make me wander thither
Wander a word for shadows like myself
As take the pain but cannot pluck the pelf


XV

Lord how mine eyes throw gazes to the east
My heart doth charge the watch the morning rise
Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest
Not daring trust the office of mine eyes
While Philomela sits and sings I sit and mark
And wish her lays were tuned like the lark

For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty
And drives away dark dismaldreaming night
The night so packd I post unto my pretty
Heart hath his hope and eyes their wished sight
Sorrow changed to solace solace mixd with sorrow
For why she sighd and bade me come tomorrow

Were I with her the night would post too soon
But now are minutes added to the hours
To spite me now each minute seems a moon
Yet not for me shine sun to succor flowers
Pack night peep day good day of night now borrow
Short night tonight and length thyself tomorrow



	SONNETS TO SUNDRY NOTES OF MUSIC


XVI

IT was a lordings daughter the fairest one of three
That liked of her master as well as well might be
Till looking on an Englishman the fairst that eye could see
Her fancy fell aturning

Long was the combat doubtful that love with love did fight
To leave the master loveless or kill the gallant knight
To put in practise either alas it was a spite
Unto the silly damsel

But one must be refused more mickle was the pain
That nothing could be used to turn them both to gain
For of the two the trusty knight was wounded with disdain
Alas she could not help it

Thus art with arms contending was victor of the day
Which by a gift of learning did bear the maid away
Then lullaby the learned man hath got the lady gay
For now my song is ended


XVII

On a day alack the day
Love whose month was ever May
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air
Through the velvet leaves the wind
All unseen gan passage find
That the lover sick to death
Wishd himself the heavens breath
Air quoth he thy cheeks may blow
Air would I might triumph so
But alas my hand hath sworn
Neer to pluck thee from thy thorn
Vow alack for youth unmeet
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were
And deny himself for Jove
Turning mortal for thy love


XVIII

My flocks feed not
My ewes breed not
My rams speed not
All is amiss
Loves denying
Faiths defying
Hearts renying
Causer of this
All my merry jigs are quite forgot
All my ladys love is lost God wot
Where her faith was firmly fixd in love
There a nay is placed without remove
One silly cross
Wrought all my loss
O frowning Fortune cursed fickle dame
For now I see
Inconstancy
More in women than in men remain
In black mourn I
All fears scorn I
Love hath forlorn me
Living in thrall
Heart is bleeding
All help needing
O cruel speeding
Fraughted with gall
My shepherds pipe can sound no deal
My wethers bell rings doleful knell
My curtail dog that wont to have playd
Plays not at all but seems afraid
My sighs so deep
Procure to weep
In howling wise to see my doleful plight
How sighs resound
Through heartless ground
Like a thousand vanquishd men in bloody fight
Clear wells spring not
Sweet birds sing not
Green plants bring not
Forth their dye
Herds stand weeping
Flocks all sleeping
Nymphs back peeping
Fearfully
All our pleasure known to us poor swains
All our merry meetings on the plains
All our evening sport from us is fled
All our love is lost for Love is dead
Farewell sweet lass
Thy like neer was
For a sweet content the cause of all my moan
Poor Corydon
Must live alone
Other help for him I see that there is none


XIX

When as thine eye hath chose the dame
And stalld the deer that thou shouldst strike
Let reason rule things worthy blame
As well as fancy partial might
Take counsel of some wiser head
Neither too young nor yet unwed

And when thou comest thy tale to tell
Smooth not thy tongue with filed talk
Lest she some subtle practise smell
A cripple soon can find a halt
But plainly say thou lovest her well

And set thy person forth to sell
What though her frowning brows be bent
Her cloudy looks will calm ere night
And then too late she will repent
That thus dissembled her delight
And twice desire ere it be day
That which with scorn she put away

What though she strive to try her strength
And ban and brawl and say thee nay
Her feeble force will yield at length
When craft hath taught her thus to say
Had women been so strong as men
In faith you had not had it then

And to her will frame all thy ways
Spare not to spend and chiefly there
Where thy desert may merit praise
By ringing in thy ladys ear
The strongest castle tower and town
The golden bullet beats it down

Serve always with assured trust
And in thy suit be humble true
Unless thy lady prove unjust
Press never thou to choose anew
When time shall serve be thou not slack
To proffer though she put thee back

The wiles and guiles that women work
Dissembled with an outward show
The tricks and toys that in them lurk
The cock that treads them shall not know
Have you not heard it said full oft
A womans nay doth stand for nought

Think women still to strive with men
To sin and never for to saint
There is no heaven by holy then
When time with age doth them attaint
Were kisses all the joys in bed
One woman would another wed

But soft enough too much I fear
Lest that my mistress hear my song
She will not stick to round me i the ear
To teach my tongue to be so long
Yet will she blush here be it said
To hear her secrets so bewrayd


XX

Live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys dales and fields
And all the craggy mountains yields

There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers by whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals

There will I make thee a bed of roses
With a thousand fragrant posies
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroiderd all with leaves of myrtle

A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs
And if these pleasures may thee move
Then live with me and be my love


LOVES ANSWER

If that the world and love were young
And truth in every shepherds tongue
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love


XXI

As it fell upon a day
In the merry month of May
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made
Beasts did leap and birds did sing
Trees did grow and plants did spring
Every thing did banish moan
Save the nightingale alone
She poor bird as all forlorn
Leand her breast uptill a thorn
And there sung the dolefullst ditty
That to hear it was great pity
Fie fie fie now would she cry
Tereu tereu by and by
That to hear her so complain
Scarce I could from tears refrain
For her griefs so lively shown
Made me think upon mine own
Ah thought I thou mournst in vain
None takes pity on thy pain
Senseless trees they cannot hear thee
Ruthless beasts they will not cheer thee
King Pandion he is dead
All thy friends are lappd in lead
All thy fellow birds do sing
Careless of thy sorrowing
Even so poor bird like thee
None alive will pity me
Whilst as fickle Fortune smiled
Thou and I were both beguiled
Every one that flatters thee
Is no friend in misery
Words are easy like the wind
Faithful friends are hard to find
Every man will be thy friend
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend
But if store of crowns be scant
No man will supply thy want
If that one be prodigal
Bountiful they will him call
And with suchlike flattering
Pity but he were a king
If he be addict to vice
Quickly him they will entice
If to women he be bent
They have at commandement
But if Fortune once do frown
Then farewell his great renown
They that fawnd on him before
Use his company no more
He that is thy friend indeed
He will help thee in thy need
If thou sorrow he will weep
If thou wake he cannot sleep
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe



	END



	THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE



	LET the bird of loudest lay
	On the sole Arabian tree
	Herald sad and trumpet be
	To whose sound chaste wings obey

	But thou shrieking harbinger
	Foul precurrer of the fiend
	Augur of the fevers end
	To this troop come thou not near

	From this session interdict
	Every fowl of tyrant wing
	Save the eagle featherd king
	Keep the obsequy so strict

	Let the priest in surplice white
	That defunctive music can
	Be the deathdivining swan
	Lest the requiem lack his right

	And thou trebledated crow
	That thy sable gender makest
	With the breath thou givest and takest
	Mongst our mourners shalt thou go

	Here the anthem doth commence
	Love and constancy is dead
	Phoenix and the turtle fled
	In a mutual flame from hence

	So they loved as love in twain
	Had the essence but in one
	Two distincts division none
	Number there in love was slain

	Hearts remote yet not asunder
	Distance and no space was seen
	Twixt the turtle and his queen
	But in them it were a wonder

	So between them love did shine
	That the turtle saw his right
	Flaming in the phoenix sight
	Either was the others mine

	Property was thus appalled
	That the self was not the same
	Single natures double name
	Neither two nor one was called

	Reason in itself confounded
	Saw division grow together
	To themselves yet either neither
	Simple were so well compounded

	That it cried How true a twain
	Seemeth this concordant one
	Love hath reason reason none
	If what parts can so remain

	Whereupon it made this threne
	To the phoenix and the dove
	Cosupremes and stars of love
	As chorus to their tragic scene

	THRENOS

	Beauty truth and rarity
	Grace in all simplicity
	Here enclosed in cinders lie

	Death is now the phoenix nest
	And the turtles loyal breast
	To eternity doth rest

	Leaving no posterity
	Twas not their infirmity
	It was married chastity

	Truth may seem but cannot be
	Beauty brag but tis not she
	Truth and beauty buried be

	To this urn let those repair
	That are either true or fair
	For these dead birds sigh a prayer



	END



  	A LOVERS COMPLAINT

FROM off a hill whose concave womb reworded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded
And down I laid to list the sadtuned tale
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale
Tearing of papers breaking rings atwain
Storming her world with sorrows wind and rain

Upon her head a platted hive of straw
Which fortified her visage from the sun
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcass of beauty spent and done
Time had not scythed all that youth begun
Nor youth all quit but spite of heavens fell rage
Some beauty peepd through lattice of seard age

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne
Which on it had conceited characters
Laundering the silken figures in the brine
That seasond woe had pelleted in tears
And often reading what contents it bears
As often shrieking undistinguishd woe
In clamours of all size both high and low

Sometimes her levelld eyes their carriage ride
As they did battery to the spheres intend
Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied
To the orbed earth sometimes they do extend
Their view right on anon their gazes lend
To every place at once and nowhere fixd
The mind and sight distractedly commixd

Her hair nor loose nor tied in formal plat
Proclaimd in her a careless hand of pride
For some untuckd descended her sheaved hat
Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside
Some in her threaden fillet still did bide
And true to bondage would not break from thence
Though slackly braided in loose negligence

A thousand favours from a maund she drew
Of amber crystal and of beaded jet
Which one by one she in a river threw
Upon whose weeping margent she was set
Like usury applying wet to wet
Or monarchs hands that let not bounty fall
Where want cries some but where excess begs all

Of folded schedules had she many a one
Which she perused sighd tore and gave the flood
Crackd many a ring of posied gold and bone
Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud
Found yet moe letters sadly pennd in blood
With sleided silk feat and affectedly
Enswathed and seald to curious secrecy

These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes
And often kissd and often gan to tear
Cried O false blood thou register of lies
What unapproved witness dost thou bear
Ink would have seemd more black and damned here
This said in top of rage the lines she rents
Big discontent so breaking their contents

A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh
Sometime a blusterer that the ruffle knew
Of court of city and had let go by
The swiftest hours observed as they flew
Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew
And privileged by age desires to know
In brief the grounds and motives of her woe

So slides he down upon his grained bat
And comelydistant sits he by her side
When he again desires her being sat
Her grievance with his hearing to divide
If that from him there may be aught applied
Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage
Tis promised in the charity of age

Father she says though in me you behold
The injury of many a blasting hour
Let it not tell your judgment I am old
Not age but sorrow over me hath power
I might as yet have been a spreading flower
Fresh to myself If I had selfapplied
Love to myself and to no love beside

But woe is me too early I attended
A youthful suitit was to gain my grace
Of one by natures outwards so commended
That maidens eyes stuck over all his face
Love lackd a dwelling and made him her place
And when in his fair parts she did abide
She was new lodged and newly deified

His browny locks did hang in crooked curls
And every light occasion of the wind
Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls
Whats sweet to do to do will aptly find
Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind
For on his visage was in little drawn
What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn

Small show of man was yet upon his chin
His phoenix down began but to appear
Like unshorn velvet on that termless skin
Whose bare outbraggd the web it seemd to wear
Yet showd his visage by that cost more dear
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
If best were as it was or best without

His qualities were beauteous as his form
For maidentongued he was and thereof free
Yet if men moved him was he such a storm
As oft twixt May and April is to see
When winds breathe sweet untidy though they be
His rudeness so with his authorized youth
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth

Well could he ride and often men would say
That horse his mettle from his rider takes
Proud of subjection noble by the sway
What rounds what bounds what course what stop
he makes
And controversy hence a question takes
Whether the horse by him became his deed
Or he his manage by the welldoing steed

But quickly on this side the verdict went
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament
Accomplishd in himself not in his case
All aids themselves made fairer by their place
Came for additions yet their purposed trim
Pieced not his grace but were all graced by him

So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kinds of arguments and question deep
All replication prompt and reason strong
For his advantage still did wake and sleep
To make the weeper laugh the laugher weep
He had the dialect and different skill
Catching all passions in his craft of will

That he did in the general bosom reign
Of young of old and sexes both enchanted
To dwell with him in thoughts or to remain
In personal duty following where he haunted
Consents bewitchd ere he desire have granted
And dialogued for him what he would say
Askd their own wills and made their wills obey

Many there were that did his picture get
To serve their eyes and in it put their mind
Like fools that in th imagination set
The goodly objects which abroad they find
Of lands and mansions theirs in thought assignd
And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them
Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them

So many have that never touchd his hand
Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart
My woeful self that did in freedom stand
And was my own feesimple not in part
What with his art in youth and youth in art
Threw my affections in his charmed power
Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower

Yet did I not as some my equals did
Demand of him nor being desired yielded
Finding myself in honour so forbid
With safest distance I mine honour shielded
Experience for me many bulwarks builded
Of proofs newbleeding which remaind the foil
Of this false jewel and his amorous spoil

But ah who ever shunnd by precedent
The destined ill she must herself assay
Or forced examples gainst her own content
To put the bypast perils in her way
Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay
For when we rage advice is often seen
By blunting us to make our wits more keen

Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood
That we must curb it upon others proof
To be forbod the sweets that seem so good
For fear of harms that preach in our behoof
O appetite from judgment stand aloof
The one a palate hath that needs will taste
Though Reason weep and cry It is thy last

For further I could say This mans untrue
And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling
Heard where his plants in others orchards grew
Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling
Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling
Thought characters and words merely but art
And bastards of his foul adulterate heart

And long upon these terms I held my city
Till thus he gan besiege me Gentle maid
Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity
And be not of my holy vows afraid
Thats to ye sworn to none was ever said
For feasts of love I have been calld unto
Till now did neer invite nor never woo

All my offences that abroad you see
Are errors of the blood none of the mind
Love made them not with acture they may be
Where neither party is nor true nor kind
They sought their shame that so their shame did find
And so much less of shame in me remains
By how much of me their reproach contains

Among the many that mine eyes have seen
Not one whose flame my heart so much as warmd
Or my affection put to the smallest teen
Or any of my leisures ever charmd
Harm have I done to them but neer was harmd
Kept hearts in liveries but mine own was free
And reignd commanding in his monarchy

Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me
Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood
Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me
Of grief and blushes aptly understood
In bloodless white and the encrimsond mood
Effects of terror and dear modesty
Encampd in hearts but fighting outwardly

And lo behold these talents of their hair
With twisted metal amorously impleachd
I have received from many a several fair
Their kind acceptance weepingly beseechd
With the annexions of fair gems enrichd
And deepbraind sonnets that did amplify
Each stones dear nature worth and quality

The diamondwhy twas beautiful and hard
Whereto his invised properties did tend
The deepgreen emerald in whose fresh regard
Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend
The heavenhued sapphire and the opal blend
With objects manifold each several stone
With wit well blazond smiled or made some moan

Lo all these trophies of affections hot
Of pensived and subdued desires the tender
Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not
But yield them up where I myself must render
That is to you my origin and ender
For these of force must your oblations be
Since I their altar you enpatron me

O then advance of yours that phraseless hand
Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise
Take all these similes to your own command
Hallowd with sighs that burning lungs did raise
What me your minister for you obeys
Works under you and to your audit comes
Their distract parcels in combined sums

Lo this device was sent me from a nun
Or sister sanctified of holiest note
Which late her noble suit in court did shun
Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote
For she was sought by spirits of richest coat
But kept cold distance and did thence remove
To spend her living in eternal love

But O my sweet what labour ist to leave
The thing we have not mastering what not strives
Playing the place which did no form receive
Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves
She that her fame so to herself contrives
The scars of battle scapeth by the flight
And makes her absence valiant not her might

O pardon me in that my boast is true
The accident which brought me to her eye
Upon the moment did her force subdue
And now she would the caged cloister fly
Religious love put out Religions eye
Not to be tempted would she be immured
And now to tempt all liberty procured

How mighty then you are O hear me tell
The broken bosoms that to me belong
Have emptied all their fountains in my well
And mine I pour your ocean all among
I strong oer them and you oer me being strong
Must for your victory us all congest
As compound love to physic your cold breast

My parts had power to charm a sacred nun
Who disciplined ay dieted in grace
Believed her eyes when they to assail begun
All vows and consecrations giving place
O most potential love vow bond nor space
In thee hath neither sting knot nor confine
For thou art all and all things else are thine

When thou impressest what are precepts worth
Of stale example When thou wilt inflame
How coldly those impediments stand forth
Of wealth of filial fear law kindred fame
Loves arms are peace gainst rule gainst sense
gainst shame
And sweetens in the suffering pangs it bears
The aloes of all forces shocks and fears

Now all these hearts that do on mine depend
Feeling it break with bleeding groans they pine
And supplicant their sighs to you extend
To leave the battery that you make gainst mine
Lending soft audience to my sweet design
And credent soul to that strongbonded oath
That shall prefer and undertake my troth

This said his watery eyes he did dismount
Whose sights till then were levelld on my face
Each cheek a river running from a fount
With brinish current downward flowd apace
O how the channel to the stream gave grace
Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses
That flame through water which their hue encloses

O father what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear
But with the inundation of the eyes
What rocky heart to water will not wear
What breast so cold that is not warmed here
O cleft effect cold modesty hot wrath
Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath

For lo his passion but an art of craft
Even there resolved my reason into tears
There my white stole of chastity I daffd
Shook off my sober guards and civil fears
Appear to him as he to me appears
All melting though our drops this difference bore
His poisond me and mine did him restore

In him a plenitude of subtle matter
Applied to cautels all strange forms receives
Of burning blushes or of weeping water
Or swooning paleness and he takes and leaves
In eithers aptness as it best deceives
To blush at speeches rank to weep at woes
Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows

That not a heart which in his level came
Could scape the hail of his allhurting aim
Showing fair nature is both kind and tame
And veild in them did win whom he would maim
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim
When he most burnd in heartwishd luxury
He preachd pure maid and praised cold chastity

Thus merely with the garment of a Grace
The naked and concealed fiend he coverd
That th unexperient gave the tempter place
Which like a cherubin above them hoverd
Who young and simple would not be so loverd
Ay me I fell and yet do question make
What I should do again for such a sake

O that infected moisture of his eye
O that false fire which in his cheek so glowd
O that forced thunder from his heart did fly
O that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowd
O all that borrowd motion seeming owed
Would yet again betray the forebetrayd
And new pervert a reconciled maid



	END