name.

But as reproof and reason beat it dead,

She cónjures him by high almighty Jove, By thy bright beauty was it newly bred.

By knighthood, yeniry,and sweet friendship’s oath

By her untimely tears, her husband's love,
I see what crosses my attempt will bring;
I know what thorns the growing rose detends;

By holy human laws, and common troth,

By heaven and earth, and all the power of both, I think the honey guarded with a sting;

That to his borrow'd bed he make retire,
All this, beforehand, counsel comprchends;

And stoop to honor, not to foul desire.
But will is deat, and hears no heedful friends;
Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty,

Quoth she," reward not hospitality,
And dotes on what he lookis, 'gainst law or duty. With such black payment as thou hast pretended;

Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee; I have debated, even in my soul,

Mar not the thing that cannot be amended; What wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall | End thy ill aim, beiore thy shoot be ended: breed;

He is no woodman that doth bend his bow
But nothing can Affection's course control,

To strike a poor unscasonable doe.
Or stop the headlong rury of his speed.
I know repentant tears ensue the deed,

My husband is thy friend, for his sake spare me; Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity;

Thyself art mighty, for thine own sake leave me; Yet strive I to embrace mine infamy.

Myself a weakling, do not then ensnare me;

Thou look'st not like deceit; do not deceive me; This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,

My sighs, like whirlwinds, labor hence to heave Which, like a falcon towering in the skies,

thee. Coucheth the fowl below with his wings' shade, If ever man were mov'd with woman's moans, Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies:

Be moved with my tears, my sighs, my groans: So under his insulting falchion lies

Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells, All which together, like a troubled ocean,
With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcons' bells Beat at thy rocky and wrech-threatening heart,

To soften it with their continual motion; “Lucrece," quoth he, “this night I must enjoy For stones dissolv'd to water do convert. thee:

0, if no harder than a stone thou art, If thou deny, then force must work my way,

Melt at my tears and be compassionate!
For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee;

Soft pity enters at an iron gate.
That done, some worthless slave or thine I'll slay,
To kill thine honor with thy life's decay;

In Tarquin's likeness I did entertain thee: And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him, Hast thou put on his shape to do him shame? Swearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him. To all the host of heaven I complain me,

Thou wrong'st his honor, wound'st his princely So thy surviving husband shall remain The scornful mark of every open eye;

Thou art not what thou seem'st; and if the same Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain,

Thou seein'st not what thou art, a god, a king; Thy issue blurr'd with nameless bastardy:

For kings like gods should govern every thing. And thou, the author of their obloquy,

Shall have thy trespass cited up in rhymes, How will thy shame be secded in thine agc,

And sung by children in succeeding times. When thus ihy vices bụd before thy spring! But if thou yield I rest thy secret friend :

If in thy hope thou dar'st do such outrage, The fault unknown is as a thought unacted;

What dar'st thou not when once thou art a king!

O be remember'd no outrageous thing
A little harm, done to a great good end,

From vassal actors can be wiped away;
For lawful policy remains enacted.
The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted

Then kings' misdeeds cannot be hid in clay. In a pure compound; being so applied,

This deed will make thee only lov'd for fear, His venom in effect is puritied.

But happy monarchs still are fear'd for love:

With foul offenders thou perforce must bear, Then for thy husband and thy children's sake,

When they in ince the like otlences prove:
Tender my suit: bequeath not to their lot

If but for fear of this thy will remove;
The shame that from them no device can take,
The blemish that will never be forgot;

For princes are the glass, the school, the book,

Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look. Worse than a slavish wipe, or birth-hour's blot: For marks descried in men's nativity

And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn? Are nature's faults, not their own infamy." Must he in thee read lectures of such shame? Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye,

Wilt thou be glass, wherein it shall discern He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause,

Authority for sin, warrant for blame,

To privilege dishonor in thy name? While she, the picture of pure piety,

Thou back'st reproach against long-lived laud, Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws, Pleads in a wilderness, where are no laws,

And mak'st fair reputation but a bawd. To the rough beast that knows no gentle right, Hast thou command? by him that gave it thee, Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite:

From a pure heart command thy rebel will:

Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity, Look, when a black-faced cloud the world doth

For it was lent thee all that brood to kill. threat, In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding,

Thy princely office how canst thou fultil, From earth's dark womb some gentle gust doth get,

When, pattern'd by thy fault, foul Sin may say, Which blows these pitchy vapors from their biding,

He learn'd to sin, and ihou didst teach the way? Hindering their present fall by this dividing; Think but how vile a spectacle it were

So his unhallow'd haste her words delays, To view thy present trespass in another:
And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.

Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear; Yet, foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally,

Their own transgressions partially they smother: While

in his holdfast foot the weak mouse panteth; This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother. Her sad behavior feeds his vulture folly,

O how are they wrapp'd in with infamies,

That from their own misdeeds askaunce their A swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth:

eyes! His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth No penetrable entrance to her plaining:

To thee, to thee, my heav’d-up hands appeal, Tears harden lust, though marble wear with Not to seducing lust, thy rash relier; raining.

I sue for exil'd inajesty's repeal;

Let him return, and flattering thoughts retire : Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fixed

His true respect will 'prison false desire, In the remorseless wrinkles of his face;

And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne, Her modest eloquence with sighs is mixed,

That thou shalt see thy state, and pity mine.' Which to her oratory adds more grace. She puts the period often from his place,

“ Have done," quoth he; “my uncontrolled tide And ’midst the sentence so her accent breaks, Turns not, but swells the higher by this let. That twice she doth begin ere once she speaks. Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide,

And with the wind in greater fury fret:

Even in this thought through the dark night be The petty streams that pay a daily debt

stealeth, To their saltsovereign, with their fresh falls'haste, A captive victor that hath lost in gain; Add to his flow, but alter not his taste."

Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth,

The scar that will, despite of cure, remain, “Thou art,” quoth she, “a sea, a sovereign king;

Leaving his spoil perplex'd in greater pain. And lo, there talls into thy boundless tlood

She bears the load of lust he left behind,
Black lust, dishonor, shame, inisgoverning,

And he the burthen of a guilty mind.
Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood.
It all these petty ills shall change thy good, He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence;

Thy sea within a puddle's womb is hersed, She like a wearied lamb lies panting there:
And not the puddle in thy sea dispersed.

He scowls, and hates himself for his offence,

She, desperate, with her nails her flesh doth tear; So shall these slaves be king, and thou their slave; He faintly flies, sweating with guilty fear; Thou nobly base, they basely dignitied;

She stays, exclaiming on the direful night; Thou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave;

He runs, and chides his vanish'd, loath'd delight Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride; The lesser thing should not the greater hide; He thence departs a heavy convertite, The cedar stoops not to the base shrub's foot,

She there remains a hopeless castaway; But low shrubs wither at the cedar's root.

He in his speed looks for the morning light;

She prays she never may behold the day: So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state",

“For day," quoth she, “night's scapes doth open lay. “No more," quoth he, “by heaven, I will not hear

And my true eyes have never practis'd how thee:

To cloak offences with a cunning brow. Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate, Instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee; they think not but that every eye can see That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee The same disgrace which they themselves behold, Unto the base bed of some rascal groom,

And therefore would they still in darkness be, To be thy partner in this shameiul doom." To have their unseen sin remain untold;

For they their guilt with weeping will unfold, Thus said, he sets the foot upon the light,

And grave, like water, that doth eat in steel, For light and lust are deadly enemies :

U pon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.” Shame folded up in blind concealing night, When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.

Here she exclaims against repose and rest, The wolf hath seiz'd his prey. the poor lamb cries,

And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind. Till with her own white leece her voice controllid | She wakes her heart by beating on her breast, Entombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold:

And bids it leap from thence, where it may tind

Some purer chest, to close so pure a mind. For with the nightly linen that she wears

Frantic with grief'thus breathes she forth her spite He pens her piteous clamors in her head;

Against the unseen secrecy of night:
Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears
That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed.

“O comfort-killing night, image of hell!
0, that prone lust should stain so pure a bed! Dim register and notary of shame!
The spots whereof could weeping purify, Black stage for tragedies and murders fell!
Her tears should drop on them perpetually.

Vast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame!

Blind muflled bawd! dark harbor for defame! But she hath lost a dearer thing than life,

Grim cave of death, whispering conspirator And he hath won what he would lose again.

With close-tongued treason and the ravisher! This forced league doth force a further strife, This momentary joy breeds months of pain, O hateful, va porous, and foggy night, This hot desire converts to cold disdain:

Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime, Pure Chastity is rifled of her store,

Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light, And Lust, the thiet, far poorer than before.

Make war against proportion'd course of time!

Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb Look as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk,

His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed, Unapt for tender smell or specdy flight,

Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head. Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk The prey wherein by nature they delight;

With rotten damps ravish the morning air; So surteit-taking Tarquin fares this night:

Let their exhald unwholesome breaths make sick His taste delicious, în digestion souring,

The life of purity, the supreme fair, Devours his will that liv'd by foul devouring.

Ere he arrive his weary noon-tide prick;8

And let thy misty vapors march so thick, o deeper sin than bottomless conceit

That in their smoky ranks his smother'd light Can comprehend in still imagination!

May set at noon, and make perpetual night. Drunken desire must vomit his receipt, Ere he can see his own abomination.

Were Tarquin night, (as he is but night's child,) While lust is in his pride, no exclamation

The silver-shining queen he would distain; Can curb his heat, or rein his rash desire,

Her twinkling handmaids too, by him detil'd, Till, like a jade, self-will himself doth tire.

Through night's black bosom should not peep again;

So should I have copartners in my pain: And then with lank and lean discolor'd cheek, And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage, With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace, As palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage. Feeble desire, all recreant, poor, and meek, Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case :

Where now I have no one to blush with me, The flesh being proud, desire doth tight with grace, Tocross theirarms, and hang their heads with mine, For there it revels; and when that decays,

To mask their brows, and hide their infamy; The guilty rebel for remission prays.

But I alone alone must sit and pine, So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome,

Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine,

Mingling my talk with tears, my griefwith groans, Who this accomplishment so hotly chased;

Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans. For now against himself he sounds this doom, That through the length of times he stands dis- ( night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke, graced :

Let not the jealous day behold that face Besides, his soul'e fair temple is defaced;

Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak To whose weak ruin muster troops of cares,

Immodestly lies martyr'd with disgrace! To ask the spotled princess how she fares. Keep still possession of thy gloomy place,

That all the faults which in thy reign are made She says, her subjects with foul insurrection Have batter'd down her consecrated wall,

May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade! And by their mortal fault brought in subjection

Make me not object to the tale-tell day! Her immortality, and make her thrall

The night will show, character'd in my brow, To living death, and pain perpetual:

The story of sweet chastity's decay, Which in her prescience she controlled still,

The impious breach of holy wedlock vow: But her foresight could not forestall their will. . The point of noon.

• Wherers.

Yea, the illiterate, that know not how

Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame, To 'cipher what is writ in learned books, Thy private feasting to a public fast;

Will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks. Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name; The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story,

Thý sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste:

Thy violent vanities can never last. And fright her crying babe with Tarquin's name;

How comes it, then, vile Opportunity The orator, to deck his oratory,

Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee? Will couple my reproach to Tarquin's shame: Feast-tinding minstrels, tuning my defame, When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend, Will tie the hearers to attend each line,

And bring him where his suit may be obtain'd? How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.

When wilt thou sort an hour great strises to end ?

Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain'd? Let my good name, that senseless reputation, For Collatine's dear love be kept unspotted :

Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd?

The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep,cry out for thee, If that be made a theme for disputation,

But they ne'er meet with Opportunity.
The branches of another root are rotted,
And undeserv'd reproach to him allotted,

The patient dies while the physician sleeps; That is as clear from this attaint of mine, The orphan pines while the oppressor iceds; As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.

Justice is feasting while the widow weeps; O unseen shame! invisible disgrace!

Advice is sporting while infection breeds; O untelt sore! crest-wounding, private scar!

Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds:

Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages, Reproach is stamp'd in Collatinus' face,

Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages And Tarquin's eye may read the moti afar, How he in peace is wounded, not in war.

When truth and virtue have to do with thee, Alas, how many bear such shameful blows, A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid; Which not themselves but he that gives them They buy thy help; but sin ne'er gives a fee, knows!

He gratis comes; and thou art well appay'd If, Collatine, thine honor lay in me,

As well to hear as grant what he hath said. From me by strong assault it is bereit.

My Collatine would else have come to me My honey lost, and I, a drone-like bee,

When Tarquin did, but he was stay'd by thee. Have no perfection of my summer lett,

Guilty thou art of murder and of theft; But robb'à and ransack'd by injurious theft: Guilty of perjury and subornation;

In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept, Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift;

And suck'd the honey which thy chaste bee kept. Guilty of incest, that abomination: Yet I am guilty of thy honor's wrack;

An accessary by thine inclination Yet for thy honor did I entertain him;

To all sins past, and all that are to come, Coming from thee, I could not put him back,

From the creation to the general doom. For it had been dishonor to disdain him:

Misshapen Time, copesmate of ugly night, Besides of weariness he did complain him,

Swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care; And talk'd of virtue:-0, unlook'd for evil,

Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,, When virtue is profan'd in such a devil!

Base watch of woes, sin's pack-horse, virtue's snare; Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud ? Thou nursest all, and murtherest all that are. Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?

o hear me then, injurious, shifting Time! Or toads intect fair founts with venom mud!

Be guilty of my death, since of my crime. Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?

Why hath thy servant, Opportunity, Or kings be breakers of their own behests?

Betray'd the hours thou gav'st me to repose ? But no perfection is so absolute,

Cancell'd my fortunes, and enchained me That some impurity doth not pollute.

To endless date of never-ending woes?
The aged man that coffers up his gold,

Time's oflice is to tine? the hate of foes;
Is plagued with cramps, and gouts, and painful fits, To cat up errors by opinion bred,
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,

Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed.
But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless barns the harvest of his wits;

Tirce's glory is to calm contending kings,
Llaving no other pleasure of his gain

To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light, But torment that it cannot cure his pain.

To stamp the seal of time in aged things,

To wake the morn, and sentinel the night, So then he hath it when he cannot use it,

To wrong the wronger till he render right'; And leaves it to be master'd by his young,

To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours, Who in their pride do presently abuse it:

And smear with dust their glittering golden Their father was too weak, and they too strong,

towers : To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long. The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours,

To fill with worm-holes stately monuments, Even in the moment that we call them ours.

To feed oblivion with decay of things,

To blot old books, and alter their contents, Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring;

To pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings, Unwholesome weeds take root with precious To dry the old oak's sap, and cherish springs ;3 flowers;

To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel, The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing; And turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel: What virtue breeds iniquity devours : We have no good that we can say is ours,

To show the beldame daughters of her daughter, But ill-annexed Opportunity

To make the child a man, the man a child, Or kills his life, or else his quality.

To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,

To tame the unicorn and lion wild ; 0 Opportunity! thy guilt is great:

To mock the subtle, in themselves beguilid; 'Tis thod that execut'st the traitor's treason;

To cheer the ploughinan with increasesul crops, Thou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get; And waste huge stones with little water-drops. Whoever plots the sin, thou point'st the season; 'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason;

Why work'st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage, And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,

Unless thou could'st return to make amends ? Sits Sin, tu seize the souls that wander by him.

One poor retiring minute in an age

Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends, Thou mak'st the vestal violate her oath;

Lending him wit, that to bad debtors lends : Thou blow'st the fire when temperance is thaw'd; O, this dread night, would'st thou one hour come Tlou sinother'st honesty, thou murther'st troth;

back, Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawa!

I could prevent this storm, and shun this wrack! Toou plantest scandal, and displacest laud: Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,

Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity, Thy honey turns to gail, thy joy to grief! With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight: 1 Motto.

* To bring an end.

3 Shoots, saplicgs.

a

tale."

Devise extremes beyond extremity,

0! that is gone for which I sought to live, To make him curse this cursed crimeful night: And the refore now I need not fear to die. Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes alright,

To clear this spot by death, at least I give And the dire thought of his committed evil A badge of tamne to slander's livery;

Shape every bush a hideous shapeless devil. A dying life to living intamy ; Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances,

Poor helpless help, the treasure stolen away, Aflict him in his bed with bedrid groans;

To burn the guiltless casket where it lay: Let there bechance him pitiful mischances,

Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know
To make him moan, but pity not his moans : The stained taste of violated troth;
Stone him with harden 'd hearts, harder than stones; I will not wrong thy true aflection so

And let mild women to him lose their mildness, To flatter thee with an infringed oath;
Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness. This bastard grafl shall never come to growth:

He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute
Let him have time to tear his curled hair,
Let him have time against himself to rave,

That thou art doting father of his fruit. Let him have tiine of Time's help to despair; Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought, Let him have time to live a loathed slave,

Nor laugh with his companions at thy state; Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave; But thou shalt know thy interest was not bought

And time to see one that by alms doth live Basely with gold, but stolen from forth thy gate. Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.

For me, I am the mistress of my fate, Let him have time to see his friends his foes,

And with my trespass never will dispense,
And merry tools to mock at him resort;

Till life to death acquit my forced offence.
Let him have time to mark how slow time goes I will not puison thee with my attaint,
In time of sorrow, and how swift and short

Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coin'd excuses;
His time of folly and his time of sport:

My sable ground of sin I will not paint, And ever let his unrecalling crime

To hide the truth of this false night's abuses: Have time to wail the abusing of his time. My tongue shall utler all; mine eyes like sluices, O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad,

As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale, Teach me to curse him that thou taught'st this ill!

Shall gush, pure streams to purge my impure At his own shadow let the thief run mad, Himself himselt scek every hour to kill!

By this, lamenting Philomel had ended Such wretched hands such wretched blood should the well-tund warble of her nighily sorrow, spill:

And solemn night with slow-sad gait descended For who so base would such an office have To ugly hell; when lo, the blushing morrow

As slanderous death's-man to so base a slave! Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow; The baser is he, coming from a king,

But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see, To shame his hope with deeds degenerate.

And therefore still in night would cloister'd be. The mightier man, the mightier is the thing Revealing day through every cranny spies, That makes him honor'd, or begets him hate: And seems to point her out where she sits weeping, For greatest scandal waits on greatest state. To whom she sobbing speaks: “() eye of eyes, The moon being clouded presently is miss'd,

Why pry'st thou through my window? leave thy But little stars may hide them when they list.

peeping; The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire, Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleepAnd unperceiv’d fly with the tilth away,

ing: But if the like the snow-white swan desire,

Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light, The stain upon his silver down will stay.

For day hath nought to do what's done by night." Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day. Thus cavils she with every thing she sees: Gnats are unnoted whereso'er they tly,

True griei'is fond and testy as a child, But eagles gaz'd upon with every eye.

Who wayward once, bis mood with nought agiees. Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools!

Old woes, not intant sorrows, bear them mild,

Continuance tames the one; the other wild,
Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators!
Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools,

Like an unpractis'd swimmer, plunging still Debate where leisure serves with dull debators;

With too much labor, drowns for want of skill. To trembling clients be you mediators:

So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care, For me, I torce not argument a straw,

Holds disputation with each thing she views, Since that my case is past the help of law. And to herseli all sorrow doth compare; In vain I rail at Opportunity,

No object but her passion's strength renews; At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful night;

And as one shifts, another straight ensues: In vain I cavil with my infamy,

Sometime her grief is dumb, and hath no words; In vain I spurn at my contìrm'd despite :

Sometime 'tis mad, and too much talk affords. This helpless smoke of words doth me no right. The little birds that tune their morning's joy The remedy indeed to do me good,

Make her moans mad with their sweet melody. Is to let forth my foul, defiled blood.

For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy; Poor hand, why quiver'st thou at this decree?

Sad souls are slain in merry company; Honor thyself to rid me of this shame;

Grief best is pleaz'd with griet's society : For if I die my bonor lives in thee,

True sorrow then is feelingly suffic'd, But if I live, thou liv'st in my defame:

When with like semblance it is sympathiz'd. Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame, 'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore;

And was a feard to scratch her wicked foe, He ten times pines that pines beholding food; Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.'

To see the salve doth make the wound ache more; This said, from her betumbled couch she starteth, Great grief grieves most at that would do it good. To find some desperate instrument of death:

Deep woes roll forward like a gentle tlood, But this no-slaughter-house no tool imparteth,

Who, being stopp'd, the bounding banks o'er. To make more vent for passage of her breath,

flows: Which thronging through her lips so vanisheth

Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows. As smoke from Ætna, that in air consumes,

“You mocking birds," quoth she," your tunes enOr that which from discharged cannon fumes.

tomb • In vain," quoth she, “I live, and scek in vain

Within your hollow-swelling feather'd breasts, Some happy mean to end a hapless lite.

And in my hearing be you mute and dumb! I teard by Tarquin's falchion to be slain,

(My restless discord loves no stops nor rests; Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife:

A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests :) But when I fear'd I was a loyal wife;

Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears; So am I now:-O no, that cannot be ;

Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.

Melancholy airs.

Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment,

Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will; Make thy sad grove in my dishevell'd hair.

How was I overseen that thou shalt see it! As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment, My blood shall wash the slander of mine ill; So I at each sad strain will strain a tear,

My lite's foul deed, my lite's fair end shall free it. And with deep groans the diapason bear :

Faint not, faint heart, but stoutly say, 'so be it.' For burthen-wise lill hum on Tarquin still, Yield io my hand; my hand shall conquer thee.

While thou on Tereus descant'st better skill. Thou dead, both die, and both shall victors be." And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part,

This plot of death when sadly she had laid, To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I, And wiped the brinish pearl from her bright eyes, To imitate thee well, against my heart

With untun'd tongue she hoarsely call'd her inaid, Will tix a sharp knife, to attright mine eye;

Whose switt obedience to her mistress hies; Who, if it wink, shall thereon fall and die.

For tieet-wing'd duty with thought's feathers flies. These means, as frets upon an instrument,

Poor Lucrece' cheeks unto her maid seem so Shall tune our heart-strings to true languish

As winter meads when sun doth melt their snow, ment.

Her mistress she doth give demure good-morrow,
And for, poor bird, thou sing'st not in the day, With soft-slow tongue, true mark of modesty,
As shaming any eye should thee behold,

And sorts a sad look to her lady's sorrow,
Some dark deep desert, seated from the way, (For why? her face wore sorrow's livery)
That knows nor parching heat nor freezing cold, But durst not ask of her audaciously
We will find out; and there we will unfold

Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsed so,
To creatures stern sad tunes, to change their Nor why her fair cheeks over-wash'd with woe.

kinds : Since men prove beasts let beasts bear gentle Each flower moisten'd like a melting eye;

But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set, minds.

Even so the maid with swelling drops 'gan wet As the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze,

Her circled eyne, entorced by sympathy Widly determining which way to fly,

Of those tair suns, set in her mistress' sky, Or one encompass'd vith a winding maze,

Who in a salt-wav'd ocean quench their light, That cannot tread the way out readily;

Which makes the maid weep like the dewy night. So with herself is she in mutiny,

A pretty while these pretty creatures stand, To live or die which of ihe twain were better, Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling : When life is shamed, and death Reproach's One justly weeps; the other takes in hand debtor.

No cause, but company, of her drops spilling:

Their gentle sex to weep are often willing; “ To kill myself," quoth she, “alack! what were it,

Grieving themselves to guess at others' smarts, But with my body my poor soul's pollution ?

And then they drown their eyes, or break their They that lose hall, with greater patience bear it

hearts. Than they whose whole is swallow'd in confusion. That mother tries a merciless conclusion

For men have marble, women waxen minds, Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes And therefore are they form'd as marble will: one,

The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange Will slay the other, and be nurse to none.

kinds

Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill: My body or my soul, which was the dearer?

Then call them not the authors of their ill, When the one pure, the other made divine.

No more than wax shall be accounted evil, Whose love of either to myself was nearer?

Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil. When both were kept for heaven and Collatine. Ah me! the bark peel'd from the lofty pine,

Their smoothness, like a goodly champaign plain, His leaves will wither, and his sap decay ; Lays open all the little worms that creep: So must my soul, her bark being peeld away In men, as in a rough-grown grove, remain

Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep: Her house is sack’d. her quiet interrupted,

Through crystal walls each little mote will peep: Her mansion batter'd by the enemy;

Though men can cover crimes with bold stern Her sacred temple spotied, spoil'd, corrupted,

looks, Grossly engirt with daring infamy:

Poor women's faces are their own faults' books Then let it not be call'd impiety

Il in this blemish'd fort I make some hole, No man inveigh against the wither'd nower,
Through which I may convey this troubled soul

But chide rough winter that the flower hath kill'd!

Not that devour'd, but that which doth devour Yet die I will not till my Collatine

Is worthy blame. 0, let it not be hildi Have heard the cause of my untimely death; Poor women's faults that they are so fulfill'do That he may vow, in that sad hour of mine,

With men's abuses! those proud lords, to blame, Revenge on him that made ine stop my breath. Make weak-made women tenants to their shame. My stained blood to Tarquin I'll bequeath, Which by him tainted, shall for him be spent,

The precedent whereof in Lucrece view, And as his due, writ in my testament.

Assail'd by night with circumstances strong

Of present death, and shame that might ensue My honor I'll bequeath unto the knife

By that her death, to do her husband wrong: That wounds my body so dishonored.

Such danger to resistance did belong, 'Tis honor to deprive dishonor'd life;

That dying fear through all her body spread; The one will live, the other being dead:

And who cannot abuse a body dead?
So of shame's ashes shall my fame be bred;
For in my death I murther shameful scorn:

By this, mild patience bid fair Lucrece speak My shame so dead, mine honor is new-boru

To the poor counterfeit of her complaining;

“My girl," quoth she,“ on what occasion break Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost,

Those tears from thee, that down thy cheeks are What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?

raining? My resolution, Love, shall be thy boast,

If thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining, By whose example thou reveng'd mayst be.

Know, gentle wench, it small avails my mood: How Tarquin must be used, read it in me:

If tears could help, mine own would do me good. Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe, And, for my sake, serve thou false Tarquin so.

Rut tell me, girl, when went"—and there she

stayed This brief abridgment of my will I make: Till after a deep groan), Tarquin from hence ?" My soul and body to the skies and ground;

“Madam, ere I was up," replied the maid, My resolution, husband, do thou take;

“The more to blame my sluggard negligence : Mine honor be the knife's that makes my wound;

Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense; My shame be his that did my fame contound;

Myself was stirring ere the break of day, And all my tame that lives disbursed be

And, ere I rose, was Tarquin gone away. To those that live, and think no shame of me.