O, how are they wrapped in with infamies That from their own misdeeds askance their eyes!
'To thee, to thee, my heaved-up hands, appeal, Not to seducing lust, thy rash relier;I sue for exiled majesty's repeal;
Let him return, and flatt'ring thoughts retire.
His true respect will prison false desire, And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne, That thou shalt see thy state and pity mine.'
'Have done, quoth he, 'my uncontrolled tide Turns not, but swells the higher by this let.
Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide, And with the wind in greater fury fret.
The petty streams that pay a daily debt To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls' haste Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.'
'Thou art', quoth she, 'a sea, a sovereign king;And, lo, there falls into thy boundless flood Black lust, dishonour, shame, misgoverning, Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood.
If all these petty ills shall change thy good;Thy sea within a puddle's womb is hearsed, And not the puddle in thy sea dispersed.
'So shall these slaves be king, and thou their slave;Thou nobly base, they basely dignified;
Thou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave;Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride.
The lesser thing should not the greater hide;The cedar stoops not to the base shrub's foot, But low shrubs wither at the cedar's root.
'So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state-"No more,' quoth he; 'by heaven, I will not hear thee.
Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate, Instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee;That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee Unto the base bed of some rescal groom, To be thy partner in this shameful doom.'
This said, he sets his foot upon the light, For light and lust are deadly enemies;Shame folded up in blind concealing night, When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.
The wolf hath seized his prey, the poor lamb cries, Till with her own white fleece her voice controlled Entombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold;For with the nightly linen that she wears He pens her piteous clamours in her head, Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed.
O, that prone 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 balk The prey wherein by nature they delight, So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night:
His taste delicious, in digestion souring, Devours his will, that lived by foul devouring.
O, deeper sin than bottomless conceit 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 discoloured 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 faultful lord of Rome, Who this accomplishment so hotly chased;For now against himself he sounds this doom, That through the length of times he stands disgraced;Besides, his soul's fair temple is defaced, To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares, To ask the spotted princess how she fares.
She says her subjects with foul insurrection Have battered 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 controlled still, But her foresight could not forestall their will.
Ev'n in this thought through the dark night he stealeth, 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 perplexed 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 wearied lamb lies panting there;He scowls, 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 vanished, loathed delight.
He thence departs a heavy convertite;
She there remains a hopeless castaway;
He in his speed looks for the morning light;She prays she never may behold the day.
'For day', quoth she, 'night's scapes doth open lay, And my true eyes have never practised how To cloak offences with a cunning brow.
'They think not but that every eye can see The same disgrace which they themselves behold;And therefore would they still in darkness be, 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 my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.'
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.
Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite 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 for defame!
Grim cave of death! whisp'ring conspirator With close-tongued treason and the ravisher!
'O hateful, vaporous and foggy Night!
