know not love," quoth he, "nor will I 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 unfinish'd? Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth? If springing things be any jot diminish'd,

They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth: The colt that's back'd and burthen'd 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 love's alarm 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! Tay mermaid's voice hath done me double wrong; I had my load before, now press'd with bearing: Melodious discord, heavenly tune harsh-sounding, Earth's deep-sweet music, and heart's deep-sore 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 still'tory of thy face excelling [ing.
Comes breath perfum'd, that breatheth love by smell-

“ But O, what banquet wert thou to the taste,
Being nurse and feeder of the other four!
Would they not wish the feast should ever last,
And bid Suspicion double-lock the door?
Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,
Sould, by his stealing in, disturb the feast."

Once more the ruby-colour'd portal open'd,
Which to his speech did honey passage yield;
Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd

Wreck to the sea-man, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gust and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.

This ill presage advisedly she marketh :

Even as the wind is hush'd before it raineth,
Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,
Or as the berry breaks before it staineth,
Eke the deadly bullet of a gun,
He 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 mile 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 in amaze 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 marr'd;
He kisses her; and she, by her good will,
Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.

The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day:
Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,
Like the fair Sun, when in his fresh array
He cheers the morn, and all the world relieveth:
And as the bright Sun glorifies the sky,
So is her face illumin'd with her eye,
Whose beams upon his hairless face are fix'd,

As if from thence they borrow'd all their shine. Were never four such lamps together mix'd,

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.

"Long may they kiss each other, for this cure! Oh, never let their crimson liveries wear! And as they last, their verdure still endure,

To drive infection from the dangerous year! That the star-gazers, having writ on death, May say, the plague is banish'd 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 seal-manual, on my wax-red lips.

"A thousand kisses buys my heart from me; And pay them at thy leisure, one by one. What is ten hundred kisses unto thee?

Are they not quickly told, and quickly gone? Say, for non-payment 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 plumb doth fall, the green sticks fast, Or, being early pluck'd, is sour to taste.

"Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait, His day's hot task hath ended in the west: The owl, night's herald, shrieks, 't is very late;

The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest; The coal-black clouds that shadow Heaven's 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 tender'd is: Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace; Incorporate then they seem; face grows to face.

Till, breathless, he disjoin'd, and backward drew The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth, Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,

Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drought: He with her plenty press'd, she faint with dearth, (Their lips together glew'd) fall to the earth.

Now quick desire hath caught her yielding prey, And glutton-like 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 blind-fold fury she begins to forage; Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil, And careless Just stirs up a desperate courage; Planting oblivion, beating reason back, Forgetting shame's pure blush, and honour's wrack.

Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing, Like a wild bird being tam'd with too much handling,

Or as the fleet-foot roe, that 's tir'd with chasing,
Or like the froward infant, still'd 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 temp'ring,
And yields at last to every light impression?
Things out of hope are compass'd oft with vent'ring,
Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission:
Affection faints not like a pale-fac'd 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 suck'd.
Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover;

What though the rose have pricks? yet is it Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast, [pluck'd: Yet love oreaks 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 resolv'd no longer to restrain him;

Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart, The which, by Cupid's bow she doth protest, He carries thence incaged in his breast.

"Sweet boy," she says, "this night I'll waste in sorrow,

For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch. Tell me, love's master, shall we meet to morrow? Say, shall we? shall we? wilt thou make the He tells her, no; to morrow he intends [match?" 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 cheeks; she trembles at his tale,

And on his neck her yoking arms she throws: She sinketh down, still hanging on 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, deceiv'd 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 assay'd as much as may be prov'd;
Her pleading hath deserv'd a greater fee;

She's love, she loves, and yet she is not lov'd. "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, [boar.

But that thou told'st me, thou would'st hunt the O be advis'd; thou know'st not what it is

With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore, Whose tushes, never-sheath'd, he whetteth still, Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.

"On his bow-back he hath a battle set

Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes; His eyes, like glow-worms shine when he doth fret; His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes; Being mov'd, he strikes whate'er is in his way, And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.

"His brawny sides, with hairy bristles armed,

Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter; His short thick neck cannot be easily harmed; 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 Love's eye pays tributary gazes; Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne, But having thee at vantage (wondrous dread!) Whose full perfection all the world amazes ;

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 thon did'st name the boar, not to dissemble, I fear'd thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.

"Did'st thou not mark my face? was it not white? Saw'st 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 affection's centinel; Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,

And in a peaceful hour doth cry, kill, kill! Distemp❜ring gentle love with his desire, As air and water doth abate the fire.

"This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy, This canker that eats up love's tender spring, This carry-tale, dissensious Jealousy,

[bring, That sometimes true news, sometimes false doth Knocks at my heart, 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 angry-chafing boar, Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie An image like thyself, all stain'd 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 trembling at th' 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 to morrow.

"But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me;
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox, which lives by subtilty,

Or at a roe, which no encounter dare:
Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs,
And on thy well-breath'd horse keep with thy hounds.
"And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch to overshut his troubles,
How he out-runs the wind, and with what care

He cranks and crosses, with a thousand doubles:
The many musits through the which he goes,
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.

"Sometime he runs among the flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell;
And sometime where earth-delving 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 scent-snuffing 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 binder legs with listening ear, To hearken 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 passing bell.

"Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way;
Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
For misery is trodden on by many,
And, being low, never reliev'd by any,

"Lie quietly, and hear a little more;

Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise: To make thee bate the hunting of the boar, Unlike thyself, thou hear'st 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 "Leave me, and then the story aptly ends; [he; The night is spent." "Why, what of that?" quoth she;

"I am," quoth he, "expected of my friends, And now 't is 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 rich men thieves; so do thy Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn, Lest she should steal a kiss, and die forsworn.

[lips

"Now, of this dark night I perceive the reason: Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine, Till forging Nature be condemn'd of treason,

For stealing moulds from Heaven that were divine,
Wherein she fram'd thee in high Heaven's despite,
To shame the Sun by day, and her by night.
"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;
Making it subject to the tyranny
Of sad mischances and much misery;
"As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,

Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood,
The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint

Disorder breeds by heating of the blood: Surfeits, impostumes, 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 sight brings beauty under: Both favour, savour, hue, and qualities,

Whereat th' imperial gazer late did wonder, Are on the sudden wasted, thaw'd and done, As mountain-snow melts with the mid-day 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.

"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 their 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 home-bred strife, Or their's, whose desperate hands themselves do Or butcher-sire, that reaves his son of life. [slay, Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets, But gold that's put to use, more gold begets.

"Nay then," quoth Adon, "you will fall again Into your idle over-handled theme; The kiss I gave you is bestow'd in vain,

And all in vain you strive against the stream; For by this black-fac'd night, desire's 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 mermaid's songs,

Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown; For know, my heart stands armed in my 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 barr'd of rest.
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 unto 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 usurps 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 sun-shine after rain,
But Just'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.

"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."

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.

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: [woe!" 66 woe, "Ah, me!" she cries, and twenty times, And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.

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 Wreath'd up in fatal folds, just in his way,

The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudEven so the timorous yelping of the hounds [der: Appals her senses, and her spright 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 court'sy who shall cope him first.