From off a hill whose concave womb reworded |
|
A plaintful story from a sist’ring vale, |
|
My spirits t’attend this double voice accorded, |
|
And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale; |
|
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale, |
5 |
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain, |
|
Storming her world with sorrow’s wind and rain. |
|
Upon her head a plaited hive of straw, |
|
Which fortified her visage from the sun, |
|
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw |
10 |
The carcass 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 peeped through lattice of seared age. |
|
Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne, |
15 |
Which on it had conceited characters, |
|
Laund’ring the silken figures in the brine |
|
That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears, |
|
And often reading what contents it bears; |
|
As often shrieking undistinguished woe, |
20 |
In clamours of all size, both high and low. |
|
Sometimes her levelled eyes their carriage ride, |
|
As they did batt’ry to the spheres intend; |
|
Sometime, diverted, their poor balls are tied |
|
To th’orbed earth; sometimes they do extend |
25 |
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend |
|
To every place at once, and nowhere fixed, |
|
The mind and sight distractedly commixed. |
|
Her hair, nor loose, nor tied in formal plait, |
|
Proclaimed in her a careless hand of pride; |
30 |
For some untucked descended her sheaved 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. |
35 |
A thousand favours from a maund she drew, |
|
Of amber, crystal and of beaded jet, |
|
Which, one by one, she in a river threw, |
|
Upon whose weeping margent she was set, |
|
Like usury, applying wet to wet, |
40 |
Or monarch’s hands, that lets not bounty fall |
|
Where want cries ‘Some!’, but where excess begs, ‘All!’ |
|
Of folded schedules had she many a one, |
|
Which she perused, sighed, tore and gave the flood; |
|
Cracked many a ring of posied gold and bone, |
45 |
Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud; |
|
Found yet moe letters, sadly penned in blood, |
|
With sleided silk, feat and affectedly |
|
Enswathed and sealed to curious secrecy. |
|
These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes, |
50 |
And often kissed, and often gave to tear; |
|
Cried, ‘O false blood, thou register of lies, |
|
What unapproved witness dost thou bear! |
|
Ink would have seemed more black and damned here.’ |
|
This said, in top of rage the lines she rents, |
55 |
Big discontent so breaking their contents. |
|
A reverend man, that grazed 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, |
60 |
Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew, |
|
And, privileged by age, desires to know |
|
In brief the grounds and motives of her woe. |
|
So slides he down upon his grained bat, |
|
And comely distant sits he by her side, |
65 |
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 ecstasy assuage, |
|
’Tis promised in the charity of age. |
70 |
‘Father,’ she says, ‘though in me ye behold |
|
The injury of many a blasting hour, |
|
Let it not tell your judgement I am old: |
|
Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power. |
|
I might as yet have been a spreading flower, |
75 |
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; |
|
O, one by nature’s outwards so commended |
80 |
That maidens’ eyes stuck over all his face; |
|
Love lacked a dwelling, and made him her place; |
|
And when in his fair parts she did abide |
|
She was new-lodged and newly deified. |
|
‘His browny locks did hang in crooked curls, |
85 |
And every light occasion of the wind |
|
Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls; |
|
What’s sweet to do, to do will aptly find; |
|
Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind: |
|
For on his visage was in little drawn |
90 |
What largeness thinks in paradise was sawn. |
|
‘Small show of man was yet upon his chin; |
|
His phoenix down began but to appear, |
|
Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin, |
|
Whose bare out-bragged the web it seemed to wear; |
95 |
Yet showed his visage by that cost more dear, |
|
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt |
|
If best were as it was, or best without. |
|
|
|
For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free; |
100 |
Yet if men moved 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 authorized youth |
|
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth. |
105 |
‘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, |
110 |
Whether the horse by him became his deed, |
|
Or he his manage, by th’ well-doing steed. |
|
‘But quickly on this side the verdict went: |
|
His real habitude gave life and grace |
|
To appertainings and to ornament, |
115 |
Accomplished in himself, not in his case; |
|
All aids, themselves made fairer by their place, |
|
Came for additions; yet their purposed trim |
|
Pieced not his grace, but were all graced by him. |
|
‘So on the tip of his subduing tongue |
120 |
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, |
125 |
Catching all passions in his craft of will. |
|
‘That he did in the general bosom 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; |
130 |
Consent’s bewitched, ere he desire have granted, |
|
And dialogued for him what he would say, |
|
Asked 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, |
135 |
Like fools, that in th’imagination set |
|
The goodly objects which abroad they find, |
|
Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assigned, |
|
And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them |
|
Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them. |
140 |
‘So many have, that never touched his hand, |
|
Sweetly supposed 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, |
145 |
Threw my affections in his charmed power, |
|
Reserved 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: |
150 |
With safest distance I mine honour shielded. |
|
Experience for me many bulwarks builded |
|
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remained the foil |
|
Of this false jewel and his amorous spoil. |
|
‘But ah! Who ever shunned by precedent |
155 |
The destined ill she must herself assay, |
|
Or forced examples ’gainst her own content, |
|
To put the by-passed perils in her way? |
|
Counsel may stop a while what will not stay: |
|
For when we rage, advice is often seen |
160 |
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 forebode the sweets that seems so good, |
|
For fear of harms that preach in our behoof: |
165 |
O appetite, from judgement 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; |
170 |
Heard where his plants in others’ orchards grew; |
|
Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling; |
|
Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling; |
|
Thought characters and words merely but art, |
|
And bastards of his foul adulterate heart. |
175 |
‘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 ye sworn to none was ever said, |
180 |
For feasts of love I have been called unto, |
|
Till now, did ne’er invite, nor never woo. |
|
‘ “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 |
185 |
Where neither party is nor true nor kind; |
|
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. |
|
‘ “Among the many that mine eyes have seen, |
190 |
Not one whose flame my heart so much as warmed, |
|
Or my affection put to th’ smallest teen, |
|
Or any of my leisures ever charmed: |
|
Harm have I done to them, but ne’er was harmed; |
|
Kept hearts in liveries, but my own was free, |
195 |
And reigned commanding in his monarchy. |
|
|
|
Of pallid pearls and rubies red as blood, |
|
Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me |
|
Of grief and blushes, aptly understood, |
200 |
In bloodless white and the encrimsoned mood, |
|
Effects of terror and dear modesty, |
|
Encamped in hearts, but fighting outwardly. |
|
‘ “And lo! Behold these talons of their hair, |
|
With twisted metal amorously empleached, |
205 |
I have received from many a several fair, |
|
Their kind acceptance weepingly beseeched, |
|
With th’annexions of fair gems enriched, |
|
And deep-brained sonnets, that did amplify |
|
Each stone’s dear nature, worth and quality. |
210 |
‘ “The diamond? Why, ’twas beautiful and hard, |
|
Whereto his invised properties did tend: |
|
The deep green emerald, in whose fresh regard |
|
Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend; |
|
The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend |
215 |
With objects manifold; each several stone |
|
With wit well-blazoned smiled, or made some moan. |
|
‘ “Lo, all these trophies of affections hot, |
|
Of pensived and subdued desires the tender, |
|
Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not, |
220 |
But yield them up where I myself must render, |
|
That is, to you, my origin and ender: |
|
For these of force must your oblations be; |
|
Since I their altar, you empatron me. |
|
‘ “O then advance of yours that phraseless hand, |
225 |
Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise; |
|
Take all these similes to your own command, |
|
Hallowed with sighs that burning lungs did raise: |
|
What me, your minister for you, obeys, |
|
Works under you; and to your audit comes |
230 |
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 in court did shun, |
|
Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote; |
235 |
For she was sought by spirits of richest coat, |
|
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, mast’ring what not strives, |
240 |
Planing the place which did no form receive, |
|
Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves; |
|
She that her fame so to herself contrives |
|
The scars of battle ’scapeth by the flight, |
|
And makes her absence valiant, not her might. |
245 |
‘ “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; |
250 |
Not to be tempted would she be immured, |
|
And now to tempt all liberty procured. |
|
‘ “How mighty then you are, O hear me tell! |
|
The broken bosoms that to me belong |
|
Have emptied all their fountains in my well, |
255 |
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 nun, |
260 |
Who, disciplined, I dieted in grace, |
|
Believed her eyes, when they t’assail begun, |
|
All vows and consecrations giving place. |
|
O most potential love! Vow, bond, nor space, |
|
In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine, |
265 |
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, |
|
Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame? |
270 |
Love’s arms are peace, ’gainst rule, ’gainst sense, ’gainst shame, |
|
And sweetens in the suff’ring 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, |
275 |
And supplicant their sighs to you extend, |
|
To leave the batt’ry that you make’gainst mine, |
|
Lending soft audience to my sweet design |
|
And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath |
|
That shall prefer and undertake my troth.” |
280 |
‘This said, his wat’ry eyes he did dismount, |
|
Whose sights till then were levelled on my face; |
|
Each cheek a river running from a fount |
|
With brinish current downward flowed apace. |
|
O how the channel to the stream gave grace, |
285 |
Who glazed 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 |
290 |
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. |
|
295 |
|
Even there resolved my reason into tears; |
|
There my white stole of chastity I daffed, |
|
Shook off my sober guards and civil fears, |
|
Appeared to him as he to me appears, |
|
All melting, though our drops this diff’rence bore: |
300 |
His poisoned 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 |
305 |
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, |
310 |
Showing fair nature is both kind and tame; |
|
And veiled in them, did win whom he would maim. |
|
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim; |
|
When he most burned in heart-wished luxury |
|
He preached pure maid, and praised cold chastity. |
315 |
‘Thus, merely with the garment of a grace, |
|
The naked and concealed fiend he covered, |
|
That th’unexperient gave the tempter place |
|
Which, like a cherubin, above them hovered. |
|
Who, young and simple, would not be so lovered? |
320 |
Ay 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 glowed! |
|
O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly! |
325 |
O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed! |
|
O, all that borrowed motion, seeming owed, |
|
Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed, |
|
And new pervert a reconciled maid.’ |
|