If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,
How can it? O how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.

O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind, Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

CXLIX.

Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
When I, against myself, with thee partake?"
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?
Nay if thou low'rst on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in myself respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?

But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.

CL.

O, from what power hast thou this powerful might,
With insufficiency my heart to sway?
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O, though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state;
If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me,
More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.

But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her-love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

CLII.

In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is lost :
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them swear against the thing they see;
For I have sworn thee fair: more perjur'd I,
To swear, against the truth, so foul a lie!

CLIII.

Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep :
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrow'd from this holy fire of love
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fir'd,
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;
I, sick withal, the help of bath desir'd,
And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,

But found no cure: the bath for my help lies
Where Cupid got new fire,-my mistress' eyes.

CLIV.

The little love-god, lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire

Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;
And so the general of hot desire

Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy
For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,
Love's fire beats water, water cools not love.

FROM off a hill whose concave womb re-worded a
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laidb to list the sad-tun'd tale:
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcase of a beauty spent and done.
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit: but, spite of Heaven's fell rage,
Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.

e

C

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,d
Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted' in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.
Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride,
As they did battery to the spheres intend;
Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied
To th' orbed earth: sometimes they do extend
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and nowhere fix'd,
The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.

Her hair, nor loose, nor tied in formal plat,
Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride;
For some, untuck'd, descended her sheav'd 3 hat,
Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;
Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,

And, true to bondage, would not break from thence,
Though slackly braided in loose negligence.

A thousand favours from a maund she drew
Of amber, crystal, and of bedded jet,1
Which one by one she in a river threw,
Upon whose weeping margent she was set;
Like usury, applying wet to wet,

Or monarch's hands, that let not bounty fall
Where want cries " ," but where excess begs all.

some,

With sleided silk feat and affectedly
Enswarth'd, and seal'd to curious secresy.
These often bath'd she in her fluxive eyes,
And often kiss'd, and often gave to tear;
Cried, "O false blood! thou register of lies,
What unapproved witness dost thou bear!
Ink would have seem'd more black and damned
here!"

This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,
Big discontent so breaking their contents.

A reverend man that graz'd his cattle nigh,
Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew
Of court, of city, and had let go by
The swiftest hours, observed as they flew,
Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew;
And privileg`d by age, desires to know
In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.

с

So slides he down upon his grained bat,d
And comely-distant sits he by her side;
When he again desires her, being sat,
Her grievance with his hearing to divide :
If that from him there may be aught applied
Which may her suffering ecstacy assuage,
"T is promis'd in the charity of age.
"Father," she says, though in me you behold
The injury of many a blasting hour,
Let it not tell your judgment I am old;
Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power:
I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied
Love to myself, and to no love beside.

"But woe is me! too early I attended
A youthful suit (it was to gain my grace
Of one by nature's outwards so commended,
That maiden's eyes stuck over all his face:
Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place:
And when in his fair parts she did abide,
She was new lodg'd, and newly deified.

Sleided silk. In Mr. Ramsay's Introduction to his edition of the Paston Letters, the old mode of sealing a letter is clearly described :-" It was carefully folded, and fastened at the end by a sort of paper strap, upon which the seal was affixed; and under the seal a string, a silk thread, or even a straw, was frequently placed running around the letter."

b Gave is here used in the sense of gave the mind to, contemplated, made a movement towards, inclined to.

e Fancy is often used by Shakspere in the sense of love; but here it means one that is possessed by fancy.

d Bat-club.

Sawn. Boswell says that the word means sour ad that it is still so pronounced in Scotland.

Whose bare out-bragg'd the web it seem'd to wear;
Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear;
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
If best 't were as it was, or best without.

"His qualities were beauteous as his form,
For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
Yet, if men mov'd him, was he such a storm
As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,
When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.
His rudeness so with his authoriz'd youth
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.

"Well could he ride, and often men would say That horse his mettle from his rider takes: Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,

What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!

And controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.

"But quickly on this side the verdict went;
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case:b
All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,
Can for additions; yet their purpos'd trim
Piec'd not his grace, but were all grac'd by him.

So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kind of arguments and question deep,
All replication prompt, and reason strong,
For his advantage still did wake and sleep:
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
He had the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will;

"That he did in the general bos m reign
Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,
To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain
In personal duty, following where he haunted:
Consents bewitch'd, ere he desire, have granted;
And dialogued for him what he would say,
Ask'd their own wills, and made their wills obey.

"Many there were that did his picture get,
To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;
Like fools that in the imagination set
The goodly objects which abroad they find

Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assign'd;
And labouring in mo pleasures to bestow them,
Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them :

"So many have, that never touch'd his hand,
Sweetly suppos'd them mistress of his heart.
My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee-simple, (not in part,)
What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
Threw my affections in his charmed power,
Reserv'd the stalk, and gave him all my flower.

“Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;
Finding myself in honour so forbid,
With safest distance I mine honour shielded:
Experience for me many bulwarks builded
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil
Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.

"But ah! who ever shunn'd by precedent
The destin'd ill she must herself assay?
Or forc'd examples, 'gainst her own content,
To put the by-pass'd perils in her way?
Counsel may stop a while what will not stay;
For when we rage, advice is often seen
By blunting us to make our wits more keen.

"Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,
That we must curb it upon others' proof,
To be forbid the sweets that seem so good,
For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.
O appetite, from judgment stand aloof!
The one a palate hath that needs will taste,
Though reason weep, and cry It is thy last,

"For further I could say, This man 's untrue,
And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;
Heard where his plants in other orchards grew,
Saw how deceits were gilded in bis smiling;
Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;
Thought characters and words, merely but art,
And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.

"And long upon these terms I held my city,
Till thus he 'gan besiege me: Gentle maid,
Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,
And be not of my holy vows afraid :
That 's to you sworn, to none was ever said;
For feasts of love I have been call'd unto,
Till now did ne'er invite, nor never vow.

"All my offences that abroad you see
Are errors of the blood, none of the mind;
Love made them not; with acture they may be,
Where neither party is nor true nor kind:

b

They sought their shame that so their shame did find; And so much less of shame in me remains,

By how much of me their reproach contains.

66

Among the many that mine eyes have seen,

Not one whose flame my heart so much as warm'd,
Or my affection put to the smallest teen,

Or any of my leisures ever charm'd:
Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harm'd;
Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,
Aud reign'd, commanding in his monarchy.

"Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me,
Of paled pearls, and rubies red as blood;
Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me
Of grief and blushes, aptly understood

In bloodless white and the encrimson'd mood;
Effects of terror and dear modesty,

Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly.

"And lo! behold these talents of their hair,
With twisted metal amorously impleach'd,
I have receiv'd from many a several fair,
(Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd,)
With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,
And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify
Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.

"The diamond, why 't was beautiful and hard,
Whereto his invis'd properties did tend;
The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard

Weak sights their sickly radiance do ainend;
The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend
With objects manifold; each several stone,
With wit well blazon'd, smil'd or made some moan.

"Lo! all these trophies of affections hot,
Of pensiv'd and subdued desires the tender,
Nature hath charg'd me that I hoard them not,
But yield them up where I myself must render,
That is, to you, my origin and ender :
For these, of force, must your oblations he,
Since I their altar, you enpatron me.

"O then advance of yours that phraseless hand,
Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;
Take all these similes to your own command,
Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise;
What me your minister, for you obeys,
Works under you; and to your audit comes
Their distract parcels in combined sums.

"Lo! this device was sent me from a nun,
Or sister sanctified of holiest note;
Which late her noble suit a in court did shun,
Whose rarest havings b made the blossoms dote;
For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,d
But kept cold distance, and did thence remove,
To spend her living in eternal love.

"But O, my sweet, what labour is 't to leave
The thing we have not, mastering what not strives?
Paling the place which did no form receive,
Playing patient sports in unconstrained
She that her fame so to herself contrives,
The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight,
And makes her absence valiant, not her might.

gyves:

"O pardon me, in that my boast is true;
The accident which brought me to her eye,
Upon the moment did her force subdue,
And now she would the caged cloister fly :
Religious love put out religion's eye:
Not to be tempted, would she be immur'd,
And now, to tempt all, liberty procur'd.

"How mighty then you are, O hear me tell!
The broken bosoms that to me belong
Have emptied all their fountains in my well,
And mine I pour your ocean all among :
I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,
Must for your victory us all congest,
As compound love to physic your cold breast.

"My parts had power to charm a sacred sun,
Who, disciplin'd and dieted in grace,
Believ'd her eyes when they to assail begun,
All vows and consecrations giving place.
O most potential love! vow, bond, nor space,
In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,
For thou art all, and all things else are thine.

"When thou impressest, what are precepts worth
Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,
How coldly those impediments stand forth

Suit. "The noble suit in court" is, we think, the suit made to her in court.

Havings. Malone receives this as accomplishments—Mr. Dyce as fortune. • Blossoms-young men; the flower of the nobility. Of richest coat-of highest descent.

And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,
The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.

Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,
Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine,
And supplicant their sighs to you extend,
To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine,
Leuding soft audience to my sweet design,
And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath,
That shall prefer and undertake my troth.
"This said, his watery eyes he did dismount,
Whose sights till then were levell'd on my face
Each check a river running from a fount
With brinish current downward flow'd apace:
O how the channel to the stream gave grace!
Who, glaz'd with crystal, gate" the glowing roses
That flame through water which their hue encloses.

"O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear!
But with the inundation of the eyes
What rocky heart to water will not wear?
What breast so cold that is not warmed here?
O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,
Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath!

b

"For lo! his passion, but an art of craft,
Even there resolv'd my reason into tears;
There my white stole of chastity I daff'd,
Shook off my sober guards, and civil fears;
Appear to him, as he to me appears,
All melting; though our drops this difference bore,
His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.

"In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,
Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
In either's aptness, as it best deceives,
To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,
Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows;
"That not a heart which in his level came
Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,
Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;
And veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim:
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
When he must burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury,
He preach'd pure maid, and prais'd cold chastity.

"Thus merely with the garment of a Grace
The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd,
That the unexperienc'd gave the tempter place,
Which, like a cherubin, above them hover'd.
Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?
Ah me! I fell; and yet do question make
What I should do again for such a sake.

"O, that infected moisture of his eye,
O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd,
O, that forc'd thunder from his heart did fly,
O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd,
O, all that borrow'd motion, seeming ow'd, d
Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd,
And new pervert a reconciled maid!"

I.

DID not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
'Gainst whom the world could not hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore; but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.
My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is;
Then, thou fair sun, that on this earth doth shine,
Exhale this vapour vow; in thee it is:
If broken, then it is no fault of mine.

If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
To lose an oath, to win a paradise?"

II.

Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook,
With young Adonis, lovely, fresh, and green,
Did court the lad with many a lovely look,
Such looks as none could look but beauty's queen.
She told him stories to delight his ear;
She show'd him favours to allure his eye;

To win his heart, she touch'd him here and there:
Touches so soft still conquer chastity.
But whether unripe years did want conceit,
Or he refus'd to take her figur'd profler,
The tender nibbler would not touch the bait,
But smile and jest at every gentle offer:

Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and toward;
He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward!

III.

If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd:
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant prove;
Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers
bow'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 com-
mend;

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, do not love that wrong,
To sing the heavens' praise with such an earthly
tongue.b

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;
The sun look'd on the world with glorious eye,
Yet not so wistly as this queen on him:

He, spying her, bounc'd in, whereas he stood;
O Jove, quoth she, why was not I a flood?

V.

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 die to grace her,
None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.

Her lips to mine how often hath she join'd,
Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!
How many tales to please me hath she coin'd,
Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing!

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 out burneth;
She fram'd the love, and yet she foil'd the framing,
She hade love last, and yet she fell a turning.
Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?
Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.

VI.

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 lov'st 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.
Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd,
Whenas himself to singing he betakes.

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

*

*

VII.

Fair was the morn, when the fair queen of love,'
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:
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, bere was the sore.

She showed hers; he saw more wounds than one,
And blushing fled, and left her all alone

• The second line is lost.