He looks upon his love and neighs unto her;
She answers him as if she knew his mind:
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,
Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,
Beating his kind embracements with her heels.

Then, like a melancholy malcontent,
He vails his tail that, like a falling plume,
Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:
He stamps and bites the poor flies in his fume.
His love, perceiving how he is enraged,
Grew kinder, and his fury was assuaged.

His testy master goeth about to take him;
When, lo, the unback'd breeder, full of fear, 320
Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,
With her the horse, and left Adonis there:

As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,
Out-stripping crows that strive to over-fly them.

All swoln with chafing, down Adonis sits,
Banning his boisterous and unruly beast:
And now the happy season once more fits,
That love-sick Love by pleading may be blest;
For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong
When it is barr'd the aidance of the tongue. 330

An oven that is stopp'd, or river stay'd,
Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage:
So of concealed sorrow may be said;
Free vent of words love's fire doth assuage;

But when the heart's attorney once is mute,
The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.

He sees her coming, and begins to glow,
Even as a dying coal revives with wind,
And with his bonnet hides his angry brow;
Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind, 340
Taking no notice that she is so nigh,
For all askance he holds her in his eye.

O, what a sight it was, wistly to view
How she came stealing to the wayward boy!

His

eyes saw her eyes as they had not seen them; Her eyes woo'd still, his eyes disdain'd the wooing: And all this dumb play had his acts made plain With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.

Full gently now she takes him by the hand, 361
A lily prison'd in a gaol of snow,
Or ivory in an alabaster band;

So white a friend engirts so white a foe:

This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling, Show'd like two silver doves that sit a-billing,

Thus she replies: "Thy palfrey, as he should,
Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire:
Affection is a coal that must he cool'd;
Else, suffer'd, it will set the heart on fire:
The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none;
Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.

'How like a jade he stood, tied to the tree,
Servilely master'd with a leathern rein!
But when he saw his love, his youth's fair fee,
He held such petty bondage in disdain;

391

Throwing the base thong from his bending crest, Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.

410

'Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish'd
Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?
If springing things be any jot diminish'd,
They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth:
The colt that's back'd and burden'd being young
Loseth his pride and never waxeth strong. 420

"You hurt my hand with wringing; let us part,
And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat :
Remove your siege from my unyielding heart;
To love's alarms it will not ope the gate:

Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery;

For where a heart is hard they make no battery.'

'What! canst thou talk?' quoth she, 'hast thou a tongue?

O, would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing! Thy mermaid's voice hath done me double wrong; I had my load before, now press'd with bearing: Melodious discord, heavenly tune harsh-sounding,

431

Ear's deep-sweet music, and heart's deep-sore wounding.

'Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love
That inward beauty and invisible;
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move
Each part in me that were but sensible:

Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,
Yet should I be in love by touching thee.

'Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me, And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch, 440 And nothing but the very smell were left me, Yet would my love to thee be still as much;

For from the stillitory of thy face excelling Comes breath perfumed that breedeth love by smelling.

'But, O, what banquet wert thou to the taste, Being nurse and feeder of the other four! Would they not wish the feast might ever last, And bid Suspicion double-lock the door,

Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest, 449
Should, by his stealing in, disturb the feast?

Once more the ruby-colour'd portal open'd,
Which to his speech did honey passage yield;
Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd
Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,

A smile recures the wounding of a frown;
But blessed bankrupt, that by love so thriveth!
The silly boy, believing she is dead,
Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red;
And all amazed brake off his late intent,
For sharply he did think to reprehend her,
Which cunning love did wittily prevent:
Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!
For on the grass she lies as she were slain,
Till his breath breatheth life in her again.

470

The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day:
Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,
Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array
He cheers the morn and all the earth relieveth;
And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,
So is her face illumined with her eye;

Whose beams upon his hairless face are fix'd,
As if from thence they borrow'd all their shine.
Were never four such lamps together mix'd,
Had not his clouded with his brow's repine; 490
But hers, which through the crystal tears gave

light,

Shone like the moon in water seen by night.

'O, where am I?' quoth she, in earth or heaven,
Or in the ocean drench'd, or in the fire?
What hour is this? or morn or weary even?
Do I delight to die, or life desire?

But now I lived, and life was death's annoy;
But now I died, and death was lively joy.

'O, thou didst kill me: kill me once again: 499 Thy eyes' shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine, Hath taught them scornful tricks and such disdain That they have murder'd this poor heart of mine;

And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen,
But for thy piteous lips no more had seen.

'Long may they kiss each other, for this cure!
O, never let their crimson liveries wear!
And as they last, their verdure still endure,
To drive infection from the dangerous year!

That the star-gazers, having writ on death, 509
May say, the plague is banish'd by thy breath.

'Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted, What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?

To sell myself I can be well contented,
So thou wilt buy and pay and use good dealing;
Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips
Set thy seal-manual on my wax-red lips.

'A thousand kisses buys my heart from me;
And pay them at thy leisure, one by one.
What is ten hundred touches unto thee?
Are they not quickly told and quickly gone? 520
Say, for non-payment that the debt should
double,

Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?'

'Fair queen,' quoth he, 'if any love you owe me,
Measure my strangeness with my unripe years:
Before I know myself, seek not to know me;
No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears:
The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,
Or being early pluck'd is sour to taste.

530

'Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait,
His day's hot task hath ended in the west;
The owl, night's herald, shrieks, "Tis very late;"
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,
And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven's light
Do summon us to part and bid good night.

'Now let me say "Good night," and so say you;
If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.'
"Good night,' quoth she, and, ere he says 'Adieu,'
The honey fee of parting tender'd is:

Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace; Incorporate then they seem; face grows to face. 540

Till, breathless, he disjoin'd, and backward drew The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth, Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew, Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth: He with her plenty press'd, she faint with dearth,

Their lips together glued, fall to the earth.

Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey, And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth; 'Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey, Paying what ransom the insulter willeth; Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,

550

That she will draw his lips' rich treasure dry:

And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,
With blindfold fury she begins to forage;
Her face dothreek and smoke, her blood doth boil,
And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage;
Planting oblivion, beating reason back,
Forgetting shame's pure blush and honour's
wrack.

Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing, Like a wild bird being tamed with too much handling, 560

Or as the fleet-foot roe that's tired with chasing, Or like the froward infant still'd with dandling, He now obeys, and now no more resisteth, While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.

What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering, And yields at last to every light impression?

Now is she in the very lists of love,
Her champion mounted for the hot encounter:
All is imaginary she doth prove,

600

He will not manage her, although he mount her;
That worse than Tantalus' is her annoy,
To clip Elysium and to lack her jcy.
Even as poor birds, deceived with painted grapes,
Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw,
Even so she languisheth in her mishaps,
As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.
The warm effects which she in him finds missing
She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.
But all in vain; good queen, it will not be: gh
She hath assay'd as much as may be proved;
Her pleading hath deserved a greater fee;
She's Love, she loves, and yet she is not loved.
'Fie, fie,' he says, 'you crush me; let me go;
You have no reason to withhold me so.'

609

"Thou hadst been gone,' quoth she, 'sweet boy, ere this, But that thou told'st me thou wouldst hunt the boar. O, be advised! thou know'st not what it is With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore,

Whose tushes never sheathed he whetteth still, Like to a mortal butcher bent to kill.

'On his bow-back he hath a battle set Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes; 620

His eyes, like glow-worms, shine when he doth fret;

His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes;
Being moved, he strikes whate'er is in his way,
And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.

'His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd,
Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter;
His short thick neck cannot be easily harm'd;
Being ireful, on the lion he will venture:

The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,
As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.

639

'O, let him keep his loathsome cabin still;
Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends:
Come not within his danger by thy will;
They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.
When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,
I fear'd thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.
'Didst thou not mark my face? was it not white?
Saw'st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?
Grew I not faint? and fell I not downright?
Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,

My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest, But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.

'For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy
Doth call himself Affection's sentinel;
Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,
And in a peaceful hour doth cry "Kill, kill!"
Distempering gentle Love in his desire,
As air and water do abate the fire.

"This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy, This canker that eats up Love's tender spring, This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,

650

That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,

Knocks at my heart and whispers in mine ear
That if I love thee, I thy death should fear: 660

'And more than so, presenteth to mine eye
The picture of an angry-chafing boar,
Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie
An image like thyself, all stain'd with gore;

Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.

'What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,
That tremble at the imagination?
The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,
And fear doth teach it divination:

I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,
If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.

'But if thou needs wilt hunt, be ruled by me;
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox which lives by subtlety,
Or at the roe which no encounter dare:

670

Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs, And on thy well-breath'd horse keep with thy hounds.

'And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles
How he outruns the wind and with what care
681
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musets through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.
Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,

And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer: Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear: 690 'For there his smell with others being mingled, The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,

Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;

Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies, As if another chase were in the skies.

"By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill, Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear, To hearken if his foes pursue him still: Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;

700

And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.
'Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way;
Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
For misery is trodden on by many,
And being low never relieved by any.

'Lie quietly, and hear a little more;
Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise: 710
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,
Unlike myself thou hear'st me moralize,

Applying this to that, and so to so; For love can comment upon every woe. 'Where did I leave?' 'No matter where;' quoth he, 'Leave me, and then the story aptly ends: The night is spent.' 'Why, what of that?' quoth she.

'I am,' quoth he, 'expected of friends;
And now 'tis dark, and going I shall fall.'
'In night,' quoth she, 'desire sees best of all. 720

'But if thou fall, O, then imagine this,
The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,
And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.
Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips
Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,

Lest she should steal a kiss and die fors worn.

'Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:
Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine,
Till forging Nature be condemn'd of treason, 729
For stealing moulds from heaven that were divine;
Wherein she framed thee in high heaven's

despite,

To shame the sun by day and her by night.

'And therefore hath she bribed the Destinies
To cross the curious workmanship of nature,
To mingle beauty with infirmities,
And pure perfection with impure defeature,
Making it subject to the tyranny

Of mad mischances and much misery;

740

As burning fevers, agues pale and faint, Life-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood, The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint Disorder breeds by heating of the blood: Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn'd despair,

Swear Nature's death for framing thee so fair.

"And not the least of all these maladies
But in one minute's fight brings beauty under:
Both favour, savour, hue and qualities,
Whereat the impartial gazer late did wonder,

Are on the sudden wasted, thaw'd and done,
As mountain-snow melts with the midday sun.

770

'Nay, then,' quoth Adon, you will fall again
Into your idle over-handled theme:
The kiss I gave you is bestow'd in vain,
And all in vain you strive against the stream;
For, by this black-faced night, desire's foul nurse,
Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.

"If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,
And every tongue more moving than your own,
Bewitching like the wanton mermaid's songs,
Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;
For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,
And will not let a false sound enter there; 780

'Lest the deceiving harmony should run
Into the quiet closure of my breast;
And then my little heart were quite undone,
In his bedchamber to be barr'd of rest.

No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,
But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.

'What have you urged that I cannot reprove?
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger:
I hate not love, but your device in love,
That lends embracements unto every stranger.

789

You do it for increase: O strange excuse, When reason is the bawd to lust's abuse !

'Call it not love, for Love to heaven is fled,
Since sweating Lust on earth usurp'd his name;
Under whose simple semblance he hath fed
Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;
Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves,
As caterpillars do the tender leaves.

'Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done;
Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.
'More I could tell, but more I dare not say;
The text is old, the orator too green.
Therefore, in sadness, now I will away;
My face is full of shame, my heart of teen :

800

Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended, Do burn themselves for having so offended.' 810 With this, he breaketh from the sweet embrace, Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast, And homeward through the dark laund runs apace; Leaves Love upon her back deeply distress'd.

Look, how a bright star shooteth from the sky,
So glides he in the night from Venus' eye;

Which after him she darts, as one on shore
Gazing upon a late-embarked friend,
Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,
Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend:
So did the merciless and pitchy night
Fold in the object that did feed her sight.

821

Whereat amazed, as one that unaware
Hath dropp'd a precious jewel in the flood,
Or stonish'd as night-wanderers often are,
Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood,
Even so confounded in the dark she lay,
Having lost the fair discovery of her way.

831

And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,
That all the neighbour caves, as seeming troubled,
Make verbal repetition of her moans;
Passion on passion deeply is redoubled:
'Ayme!' she cries, and twenty times 'Woe, woe!'
And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.

She marking them begins a wailing note
And sings extemporally a woeful ditty;
How love makes young men thrall and old men
dote;

How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty:

Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,
And still the choir of echoes answer so.

840

Her song was tedious and outwore the night,
For lovers' hours are long, though seeming short:
If pleased themselves, others, they think, delight
In such-like circumstance, with such-like sport:
Their copious stories oftentimes begun
End without audience and are never done.

For who hath she to spend the night withal But idle sounds resembling parasites,