That blushing red no guilty instance gave,
Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have

But, like a constant and confirmed devil,
He entertain'd a show so seeming just,
And therein so ensconced his secret evil,
That jealousy itself could not mistrust
False-creeping craft and perjury should thrust
Into so bright a day such black-faced storms,
Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.

The well-skill'd workman this mild image drew
For perjured Sinon, whose enchanting story 1521
The credulous old Priam after slew;
Whose words like wildfire burnt the shining
glory
Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry,
And little stars shot from their fixed places,
When their glass fell wherein they view'd
their faces.

1530

This picture she advisedly perused,
And chid the painter for his wondrous skill,
Saying, some shape in Sinon's was abused;
So fair a form lodged not a mind so ill:
And still on him she gazed; and gazing still,
Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied,
That she concludes the picture was belied.
'It cannot be,' quoth she, 'that so much guile'-
She would have said 'can lurk in such a look;'
But Tarquin's shape came in her mind the
while,
(took:
And from her tongue 'can lurk' from 'cannot'
It cannot be' she in that sense forsook,
And turn'd it thus, It cannot be, I find,
But such a face should bear a wicked mind:

For even as subtle Sinon here is painted,
So sober-sad, so weary, and so mild,
As if with grief or travail he had fainted,
To me came Tarquin armed; so beguiled
With outward honesty, but yet defiled

With inward vice: as Priam him did cherish,
So I did Tarquin; so my Troy did perish.
'Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes,
To see those borrow'd tears that Sinon sheds!
Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise? 1550
For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds:
His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds;
Those round clear pearls of his, that move thy
pity,

Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city. 'Such devils steal effects from lightless hell; For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold, And in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell; These contraries such unity do hold, Only to flatter fools and make them bold;

So Priam's trust false Sinon's tears doth flatter, That he finds means to burn his Troy with water.'

Here, all enraged, such passion her assails,
That patience is quite beaten from her breast.
She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails,
Comparing him to that unhappy guest
Whose deed hath made herself herself detest:
At last she smilingly with this gives o'er.
"Fool, fool!' quoth she, 'his wounds will not
be sore.'

And both she thinks too long with her remaining: Short time seems long in sorrow's sharp sustaining:

Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps; And they that watch see time how slow it creeps.

That she with painted images hath spent;
Which all this time hath overslipp'd her thought,
Being from the feeling of her own grief brought
Losing her woes in shows of discontent.
By deep surmise of others' detriment;

1580

It easeth some, though none it ever cured, To think their dolour others have endured. But now the mindful messenger, come back, Brings home his lord and other company: Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black; And round about her tear-distained eye Blue circles stream'd, like rainbows in the sky: These water-galls in her dim element Foretell new storms to those already spent. Which when her sad-beholding husband saw, Amazedly in her sad face he stares: Her eyes, though sod in tears, look'd red and

raw,

Her lively color kill'd with deadly cares, He hath no power to ask her how she fares:

1591

Both stood, like old acquaintance in a trance, Met far from home, wondering each other's chance.

At last he takes her by the bloodless hand,
And thus begins: What uncouth ill event
Hath thee befall'n, that thou dost trembling

stand?

Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair color spent?
Why art thou thus attired in discontent? 1601
Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness,
And tell thy grief, that we may give redress.'
Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire,
Ere once she can discharge one word of woe:
She modestly prepares to let them know
At length address'd to answer his desire,
Her honor is ta'en prisoner by the foe;

While Collatine and his consorted lords With sad attention long to hear her words. 1610 And now this pale swan in her watery nest Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending; 'Few words,' quoth she, 'shall fit the trespass best,

Where no excuse can give the fault amending:
In me moe woes than words are now depending;
And my laments would be drawn out too long,
To tell them all with one poor tired tongue.
'Then be this all the task it hath to say:
Dear husband, in the interest of thy bed
A stranger came, and on that pillow lay
Where thou wast wont to rest thy weary head;
And what wrong else may be imagined

1620

By foul enforcement might be done to me, From that, alas, thy Lucrece is not free. For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight, With shining falchion in my chamber came

Some of her blood still pure and red remain'd, And some look'd black, and that false Tarquin stain'd.

About the mourning and congealed face
Of that black blood a watery rigol goes,
Which seems to weep upon the tainted place:
And ever since, as pitying Lucrece' woes,
Corrupted blood some watery token shows;

And blood untainted still doth red abide,
Blushing at that which is so putrefied. 1750

'Daughter, dear daughter,' old Lucretius cries, That life was mine which thou hast here de. prived.

If in the child the father's image lies,
Where shall I live now Lucrece is unlived?
Thou wast not to this end from me derived.
children pre-decease progenitors,
We are their offspring, and they none of ours.
'Poor broken glass, I often did behold
In thy sweet semblance my old age new born;
But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and old, 1760
Shows me a bare-boned death by time outworn;
O, from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn,
And shiver'd all the beauty of my glass,
That I no more can see what once I was!

'O time, cease thou thy course and last no longer,

If they surcease to be that should survive.
Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger
And leave the faltering feeble souls alive?
The old bees die, the young possess their hive:
Then live, sweet Lucrece, live again and see
Thy father die, and not thy father thee!' 1771
By this, starts Collatine as from a dream,
And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place:
And then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream
He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face,
And counterfeits to die with her a space;

Till manly shame bids him possess his breath
And live to be revenged on her death.

The deep vexation of his inward soul
Hath served a dumb arrest upon his tongue; 1780
Who, mad that sorrow should his use control,
Or keep him from heart-easing words so long,
Begins to talk, but through his lips do throng
Weak words, so thick come in his poor
heart's aid,

That no man could distinguish what he said.
Yet sometime Tarquin' was pronounced plain,
But through his teeth, as if the name he tore.
This windy tempest, till it blow up rain,
Held back his sorrow's tide, to make it more;
At last it rains, and busy winds give o'er: 179
Then son and father weep with equal strife
Who should weep most, for daughter or for
wife.

The one doth call her his, the other his,
Yet neither may possess the claim they lay.
The father says 'She's mine.' 'O, mine she is,'
Replies her husband: do not take away
My sorrow's interest: let no mourner say
He weeps for her, for she was only mine,
And only must be wail'd by Collatine.'

Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece' side,
Seeing such emulation in their woe,
Began to clothe his wit in state and pride,
Burying in Lucrece wound his folly's show. 1810
He with the Romans was esteemed so

As silly-jeering idiots are with kings,
For sportive words and uttering foolish things:

But now he throws that shallow habit by,
Wherein deep policy did him disguise;
And arm'd his long-hid wits advisedly,
To check the tears in Collatinus' eyes. ['arise:
Thou wronged lord of Rome,' quoth he,
Let my unsounded self, supposed a fool,
Now set thy long-experienced wit to school.
'Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe? 1821
Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous
deeds?

Is it revenge to give thyself a blow
For his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds?
Such childish humor from weak minds pro-
ceeds:

Thy wretched wife mistook the matter so,
To slay herself, that should have slain her foe.

'Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart
In such relenting dew of lamentations;
But kneel with me and help to bear thy part,
To rouse our Roman gods with invocations, 1831
That they will suffer these abominations,

Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgraced,

By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chased.

Now, by the Capitol that we adore, And by this chaste blood so unjustly stain'd. By heaven's fair sun that breeds the fat earth's store,

By all our country rights in Rome maintain'd, And by chaste Lucrece' soul that late complain'd

Her wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife, We will revenge the death of this true wife.' This said, he struck his hand upon his breast, And kiss'd the fatal knife, to end his vow; And to his protestation urged the rest, Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow, Who, wondering at him, did his words allow :

And that deep vow, which Brutus made before, He doth again repeat, and that they swore.

When they had sworn to this advised doom,
They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence:
To show her bleeding body thorough Rome, 1851
And so to publish Tarquin's foul offence:
Which being done with speedy diligence,
The Romans plausibly did give consent
To Tarquin's everlasting banishment,

FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

T. T.

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime:
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

IV.

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?
And being frank she lends to those are free.
Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee,
Which, used, lives th' executor to be.

VI.

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
That use is not forbidden usury
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

VII.

Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;

But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract, and look another way:
So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,
Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.

VIII.

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not
gladly,

Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
That thou consumest thyself in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow, and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind
Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused, the user so destroys it.

No love toward others in that bosom sits That on himself such murderous shame conmits.

X.

For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,
Who for thyself art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lovest is most evident;
For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate
That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
O, change thy thought, that I may change my
mind!

Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:

Make thee another self, for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

stowest

XI.

As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest
In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
And that fresh blood which youngly thou be-
[convertest.
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth
Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase;
Without this, folly, age and cold decay:
If all were minded so, the times should cease,
And threescore year would make the world away.
Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,
Harsh, featureless and rude, barrenly perish:
Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty

cherish:

She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

XII.

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;"
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence

Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

XIII.

O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination: then you were
Yourself again after yourself's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should
bear.

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honor might uphold
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
O,none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know
You had a father. let your son say so.