"And therefore hath she brib'd the Destinies
To cross the curious workmanship of Nature,
To mingle beauty with infirmities,
And pure perfection with impure defeature;1
Making it subject to the tyranny

Of mad mischances and much misery;

"As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,
Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood, 740
The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint
Disorder breeds by heating of the blood:

Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn'd despair, Swear Nature's death for framing thee so fair. "And not the least of all these maladies

But in one minute's fight brings beauty under: Both favour, savour, hue, and qualities, Whereat th' impartial gazer late did wonder,

Are on the sudden wasted, thaw'd, and done,
As mountain snow melts with the midday sun.

"Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity,
Love-lacking vestals, and self-loving 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.

751

Bewitching like the wanton mermaid's 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; 780
"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 barr'd of rest.

789

No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,
But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.
"What have you urg'd 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 lust's abuse !
"Call it not love, for Love to heaven is fled,
Since sweating Lust on earth usurp'd 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 Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done;
Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.

800

"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." 810

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 distress'd.
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 late-embarked 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.

821

840

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 pleas'd themselves, others, they think, delight
In such-like circumstance,1 with such-like 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 shrill-tongu'd tapsters answering every call,
Soothing the humour of fantastic wits?

850

889

Finding their enemy to be so curst, They all strain courtesy who shall cope3 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 cold-pale 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 dismay'd, She tells them 't is a causeless fantasy, And childish error, that they are afraid; Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no

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 she 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,

910

Full of respects, yet naught at all respecting;1
In hand with all things, naught at all effecting.

Here kennell'd in a brake she finds a hound,
And asks the weary caitiff for his master;
And there another licking of his wound,
'Gainst venom'd sores the only sovereign plaster;
And here she meets another sadly scowling,

To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.
When he hath ceas'd his ill-resounding noise, 919
Another flap-mouth'd 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 scratch'd ears, bleeding as they go.

Look how the world's poor people are amaz'd
At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,
Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gaz'd,
Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;

So she at these sad signs draws up her breath,
And, sighing it again, exclaims on Death.

930

Thy mark is feeble age; but thy false dart Mistakes that aim, and cleaves an infant's 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 pluck'st a flower: Love's golden arrow at him should have fled, And not Death's ebon2 dart, to strike him dead. "Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok'st 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?
2 Ebon, i.e. black.

1 Respecting seeing.

950

958

Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour,
Since her best work is ruin'd with thy rigour."
Here overcome, as one full of despair,
She vail'd her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopp'd
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp'd;
But through the flood-gates 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 view'd each other's sor-
row,-

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 entertain'd, each passion labours so,
That every present sorrow seemeth chief,

970

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 nurse's song ne'er pleas'd her babe so well:
The dire imagination she did follow
The 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 prison'd in her eye like pearls in glass; 950
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 drown'd.
O hard-believing love, how strange it seems
Not to believe, and yet too credulous!
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;
Despair and hope make 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 call'd him all to nought:
Now she adds honours to his hateful name;

988

She clepes3 him king of graves, and grave for kings, Imperious supreme of all mortal things.

3 Clepes, calls.

For he being dead, with him is beauty slain, And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.

1018

Fie, fie, fond love, thou art so full of fear
As one with treasure laden hemm'd with 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 boar's conquest on her fair delight; 1030
Which seen, her eyes, as murder'd with the view,
Like stars asham'd of day, themselves withdrew;
Or as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,
Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain,
And there, all smother'd 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:

And, being open'd, threw unwilling light
Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench'd
In his soft flank; whose wonted lily white
With purple tears, that his wound wept, was
drench'd:

No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed,
But stole his blood, and seem'd 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: 1060
Her voice is stopp'd, her joints forget to bow;
Her eyes are mad that they have wept till 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 turn'd to fire, my heart to lead:
Heavy heart's lead, melt at mine eyes' red fire!
So shall I die by drops of hot desire.

1074

"Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost! What face remains alive that 's 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 true-sweet beauty liv'd 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; 1083 The sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you:

But when Adonis liv'd, sun and sharp air
Lurk'd 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, 1091 They both would strive who first should dry his tears.

"To see his face the lion walk'd 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.

1109

If he did see his face, why then I know
He thought to kiss him, and hath kill'd him so.

"'Tis true, 't is 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
Sheath'd, unaware, the tusk in his soft groin.
"Had I been tooth'd like him, I must confess,
With kissing him I should have kill'd 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 woful words she told;

1119

1 Urchin-snouted; properly an urchin was a hedgehog.

1129

1159

She lifts the coffer-lids 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 excell'd, And every beauty robb'd 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; Ne'er settled equally, but high or low; That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe. "It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud; Bud and be blasted in a breathing-while; The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd 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 raging-mad and silly-mild, Make the young old, the old become a child.

1149