Look, when a painter would surpass the life, Sometimes be scuds far off, and there he stares, And wher he run, or fly, they know not whether; He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her; She answers him, as if she knew his mind: Then, like a melancholy male-content, He vails his tail, that, like a falling plume, He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume: His testy master goeth about to take him ; With her the horse, and left Adonis there: All swoln with chasing, down Adonis sits, Banning his boisterous and unruly beast; An oven that is stopp'd, or river stay'd, Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage: So of concealed sorrow may be said; Free vent of words love's fire doth assuage; But when the heart's attorney once is mute The client breaks, as desperate in his suit. He sees her coming, and begins to glow, (Even as a dying coal revives with wind) O what a sight it was, wistly to view How she came stealing to the wayward boy! To note the fighting conflict of her hue! How white and red each other did destroy! But now, her cheek was pale, and by and by It flash'd forth fire, as lightning from the sky. Now was she just before him as he sať, And like a lowly lover down she kneels ; Her other tender hand his fair cheeks feels: O what a war of looks was then between them! And all this dumb play had his acts made plain Full gently now she takes him by the hand, So white a friend engirts so white a foe: My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound; "Give me my hand," saith he, "why dost thou And, being steel'd, soft sighs can never grave it : "For shame," he cries, " let go, and let me go; I pray you hence, and leave me here alone; Else, suffer'd, it will set the heart on fire: Servilely master'd with a leathern rein! "Who sees his true love in her naked bed, His other agents aim at like delight? "Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy; And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee, To take advantage on presented joy; Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach O learn to love; the lesson is but plain, [thee And, once made perfect, never lost again. 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, "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 “ But O, what banquet wert thou to the taste, Once more the ruby-colour'd portal open'd, Wreck to the sea-man, tempest to the field, This ill presage advisedly she marketh : Even as the wind is hush'd before it raineth, 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! He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks, The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day: 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, What wax so frozen but dissolves with temp'ring, When he did frown, O had she then gave over, 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; Even as poor birds, deceiv'd with painted grapes, 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'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? I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow, "But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me; Or at a roe, which no encounter dare: He cranks and crosses, with a thousand doubles: "Sometime he runs among the flock of sheep, "For there his smell with others being mingled, "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 "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, And pure perfection with impure defeature; Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood, 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 "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, "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." With this, he breaketh from the sweet embrace Which after him she darts, as one on shore Whereat amaz'd, as one that unaware Hath dropp'd a precious jewel in the flood, Or 'stonish'd as night-wanderers often are, Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood; Even so confounded in the dark she lay, Having lost the fair discovery of her way. 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. |