A LOVER'S

COMPLAINT.

20

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 clamors 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 the 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 30
For some, untuck'd, 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.

These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes, 50
And often kiss'd, and often 'gan 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 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;
When he again desies 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 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:
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 maidens' eyes stuck over all his face : 81
Love lack'd 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;
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-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 were as it was, or best without.

'His qualities were beauteous as his form, 99
For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
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.

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 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 :
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 many have, that never touch'd 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, 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 honor so forbid, 150

With safest distance I mine honor 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 destined ill she must herself assay ?
Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content,
To put the by-past perils in her way?
Counsel may stop awhile 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 forbod 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 others' orchards grew,

171

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.

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 call'd unto, Till now did ne'er invite, nor never woo.

To spend her living in eternal love.

""But, O my sweet, what labor is't to leave The thing we have not, mastering what not strives,

240

†Playing 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.

""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 immured,
And now, to tempt, all liberty procured.

250

""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.

666

My parts had power to charm a sacred nun,

260

Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,
Believed 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 269 Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame! †Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst

sense, 'gainst shame,

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,

Lending soft audience to my sweet design, And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath That shall prefer and undertake my troth

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 : [claim; Against the thing he sought he would exWhen he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury, He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity.

'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd; That th' unexperient gave the tempter place, Which like a cherubin above them hover'd. Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?

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,

320

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

329

Property was thus appalled,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was called
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together,
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded,

That it cried, How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.

Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene.