'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 [lend me From what is past: the help that thou shalt 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 honorable faiths to me, With swift pursuit to venge this wrong of mine; 1691

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 bewray'd.
But she, that yet her sad task hath not said,
The protestation stops. 'O, speak,' quoth
she,
1700

'How may this forced stain be wiped from me? 1

What is the quality of mine offence,
Being constrain'd with dreadful circumstance?
'May my pure mind with the foul act dispense,
My low-declined honor to advance ?
May any terms acquit me from this chance

The poison'd fountain clears itself again;
And why not I from this compelled stain?'

With this, they all at once began to say, 1709
Her body's 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 excuse's giving.' Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break, She throws forth Tarquin's name; 'He, he,' she says,

But more than 'he' her poor tongue could not speak;

1719

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.'

Stone-still, astonish'd with this deadly deed, Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew; 1731 Till Lucrece' father, that beholds her bleed, Himself on her self-slaughter'd 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 late-sack'd island, vastly stood Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood. 1741 Some of her blood still pure and red remain'd,

And some look'd black, and that false Tarquin stain'd.

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. 1750
'Daughter, dear daughter,' old Lucretius
cries,

'That life was mine which thou hast here deprived.

If in the child the father's image lies,
Where shall I live now Lucrece is unlived?
Thou wast not to this end from me derived.
If children pre-decease progenitors,
We are their offspring, and they none of

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 key-cold Lucrece' bleeding

The one doth call her his, the other his,

Yet neither may possess the claim they lay. The father says She's mine.' O, mine she is,'

Replies her husband: 'do not take away
My sorrow's interest; let no mourner say
He weeps for her, for she was only mine,
And only must be wail'd by Collatine.'

'O,' quoth Lucretius, 'I did give that life 1800 Which she too early and too late hath spill'd.' 'Woe, woe,' quoth Collatine, she was my wife,

I owed her, and 'tis mine that she hath kill'd.'

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 Jove's 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 heaven's praise with such an earthly

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 brook's green
brim :
80

The sun look'd 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 fear

ing!

Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings, Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were

jestings.

She burn'd with love, as straw with fire

flameth;

She burn'd out love, as soon as straw outburneth;

She framed the love, and yet she foil'd the framing;

She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning. Was this a lover, or a lecher whether? 101 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. 110
Thou lovest to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music,
makes;

And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd
When as himself to singing he betakes.

One god is god of both, as poets feign;
One knight loves both, and both in thee re-
main.

Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove,
For Adon's sake, a youngster proud and wild;
Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill: 121
Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds;
She, silly queen, with more than love's 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 deep-wounded 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. 130

X.

Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd soon vaded,

Pluck'd in the bud, and vaded in the spring Bright orient pearl, alack, too timely shaded Fair creature, kill'd too soon by death's 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 left'st me nothing in thy will:
And yet thou left'st me more than I did crave;
For why I craved nothing of thee still: 140

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.

170

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 that's 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 wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,

So beauty blemish'd once 's for ever lost, In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.

XIV.

Good night, good rest. Ah, neither be my share: 181

She bade good night that kept my rest away; And daff'd me to a cabin hang'd with care, To descant on the doubts of my decay. 'Farewell,' quoth she, 'and come again tomorrow :' [row. Fare well I could not, for I supp'd with sorYet at my parting sweetly did she smile, In scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether: 'T may be, she joy'd 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.