My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
O me! what eyes hath love put in my head, Which have no correspondence with true sight! Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, That censures falsely what they see aright? If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, What means the world to say it is not so? 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.
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.
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 should'st not abhor my state: If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me, More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.
Love is too young to know what conscience is; Yet who knows not, conscience is born of love? Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove: For, thou betraying me, I do betray My nobler part to my gross body's treason; My soul doth tell my body that he may Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason, 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.
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 !
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-fired, The boy for trial needs would touch my breast; I sick withal, the help of bath desired, 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.
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 heats water, water cools not love.
FROM off a hill whose concave womb re-worded A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits t' attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid to list the sad-tun'd tale; Ere long espy'd 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.
Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne, Which on it had conceited characters, Laundering 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 level'd eyes their carriage ride, As they did battery to the spheres intend;
Sometime, diverted, their poor balls are tied To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend Their view right on; anon their gazes lend To every place at once, and no where 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 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, Which one by one she in a river threw, Upon whose weeping margent she was set; Like usury, applying wet to wet, Or monarchs' hands, that let not bounty fall Where want cries "some," but where excess begs all. Of folded schedules had she many a one, Which she perus'd, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood; Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone, Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud; Found yet more letters sadly pen'd in blood, With sleided silk feat and affectedly Enswath'd, and seal'd to curious secrecy.
These often bath'd she in her fluxive eyes, And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear; Cry'd, 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 discontend so breaking their contents. A reverend man that graz'd his cattle nigh, Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew
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