Page images
PDF
EPUB

O that foul 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 full-fed hound or gorged hawk,
Unapt for tender smell, or speedy flight,
Make slow pursuit, or altogether baulk
The prey wherein by nature they delight:
So surfeit-taking Tarquin fears this night;
His taste delicious, in digestion souring,
Devours his will, that liv'd by foul devouring,

O! deeper sin than bottomless deceit
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, self-will himself doth tire.

And then with lank and lean discolour'd 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 fault-full lord of Rome,
Who this accomplishment so hotly chas'd :
For now against himself he sounds his doom,
That thro' the length of time he stands disgrac'd :
Besides, his soul's fair temple is defac'd;

To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,
To ask the spotted princess how she fares.

[graphic]

She says, her subjects with foul insurrection
Have batter'd 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 controled still,
But her foresight could not forestal their will.

E'en in this thought through the dark night he stea
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 perplex'd 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 weary'd lamb lies panting there :
He scolds and hates himself for his offence,
She desperate, with her nails her flesh doth tear;
He faintly flies, sweating with guilty fear:

She stays exclaiming on the direful night,
He runs and chides his vanish'd, loath'd, deligh

He thence departs a heavy convertite;
She there remains a hopeless cast-away:
He in his speed looks for the morning-light;
She prays she never may behold the day:
For day (quoth she) night-scapes doth open lay;
And my true eyes have never practis'd how
To cloak offences with a cunning brow.

They think not but that every eye can see
The same disgrace which they themselves beholo
And therefore would they still in darkness lie,
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 their cheeks what helpless shame they f

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.
Frantick with grief, thus breathes she forth her spight,
Against the unseen secrecy of night.

O comfort-killing night! image of hell!
Dim register! and notary of shame!
Black stage for tragedies! and murders fell!
Vast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame!
Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour of defame !
Grim cave of death! whispering conspirator
With close-tongued 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 proportion'd course of tin 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 exhal'd unwholsome breaths make sick
The life of purity, the supreme fair,
Ere he arrive his weary noon-tide prick;
And let thy misty vapours march so thick,
That in their smoaky ranks his smother'd light,
May set at noon, and make perpetual night.

Were Tarquin night, as he is but night's child,
The silver-shining queen him would disdain;
Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defil'd,
Thro' night's black bosom should not peep again.
So should I have copartners in my pain:

And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,
As palmers, that make short their pilgrimage

Where now? have I 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.

F2

O night! thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke!
Let not the jealous day behold that face,
Which underneath thy black, all-hiding cloak
Imodestly lies martyr'd 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 tell-tale day;
The light shall shew, character'd in my brow,
The story of sweet chastity's decay,
The impious breach of holy wedlock's vow.
Yea, the illiterate, that know not how

To cypher 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 Tarquin's name?
The orator, to deck his oratory,

Will couple my reproach to Tarquin's shame.
Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame,
Will tie the hearers to attend each line,
How Tarquin wronged me, I Colatine.

Let my good name, that senseless reputation,
For Colatine's 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 Colatine.

O unseen shame! invisible disgrace;
O unfelt sore! crest-wounding private scar !
Reproach is stampt in Colatinus' face,
And Tarquin's eye may read the mote 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, Colatine, thine honour lay in me,
From me, by strong assault, it is bereft,
My honey lost, and I a drone-like bee,
Have no perfection of my summer left,

But robb'd and ransack'd by injurious theft:
In thy weak hive a wand'ring wasp hath crept,
And suck'd the honey which thy chaste bee kept.

Yet am I guilty of thy honour's wreck ?
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 talk'd of virtue: O unlook'd for evil !

When virtue is profan'd in such a devil !

Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?
Or hateful cuckows 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 coffers up his gold,
Is plagu'd with cramps, and gouts, and painful fits;
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold:
But still like pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless bans 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 master'd by his young,
Who in their pride do presently abuse it;
Their father was too weak and they too strong
To hold their cursed, blessed fortune long.

The sweets we wish for, turn to loathed sours,
E'en in the moment that we call them ours.

Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring,
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;
The adder hisseth where the sweet birds sing;
What virtue breeds, iniquity devours;
We have no good, that we can say is ours.
But ill annexed opportunity,

Or kills his life, or else his quality.

« PreviousContinue »