Imatges de pàgina
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This dismal cry rings fadly in her ear,
Through which it enters to surprise her heart,
Who, overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,
With cold pale weakness numbs each feeling part:
Like foldiers, when their captain once doth yield,
They bafely fly, and dare not stay the field.

Thus ftands fhe in a trembling ecstacy;
Till, chearing up her fenfes fore-dismay'd,
She tells them, 'tis a causeless fantasy,
And childish error that they are afraid;

Bids them leave quaking, wills them fear no more ;-
And with that word fhe fpy'd the hunted boar;

Whose frothy mouth, bepainted all with red,
Like milk and blood being mingled both together,
A fecond fear through all her finews spread,
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither;
This way the runs, and now she will no further,
But back retires, to rate the boar for murder.

A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways;
She treads the paths that she untreads again;
Her more than hafte is mated with delays,
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain;
Full of respect, yet nought at all respecting,
In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.

Here kennel'd in a brake she finds a hound,
And asks the weary caitiff for his master;
And there another licking of his wound,
'Gainft venom'd fores the only fovereign plafter;
And here she meets another fadly scowling,

To whom she speaks; and he replies with howling.

When he had ceas'd his ill-refounding noise,
Another flap-mouth'd mourner, black and grim,
Against the welkin vollies out his voice;
Another and another answer him,

Clapping their proud tails to the ground below,
Shaking their scratch'd ears, bleeding as they go.

Look, how the world's poor people are amazed
At apparitions, figns, and prodigies,
Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed,
Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;

So fhe at these sad signs draws up her breath,
And, fighing it again, exclaims on death.

Hard-favour'd tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,
Hateful divorce of love (thus chides she death)
Grim-grinning ghoft, earth's worm, what doft thou mean

To ftifle beauty, and to steal his breath,

.

Who when he liv'd, his breath and beauty fet

Glofs on the rofe, fmell to the violet?

If he be dead,—O no, it cannot be,

Seeing his beauty, thou fhould'ft ftrike at it-
it may; thou haft no eyes to see,

O yes,
But hatefully at random dost thou hit.

Thy mark is feeble age; but thy false dart
Mistakes that aim, and cleaves an infant's heart.

Hadft thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,
And hearing him, thy power had loft his power.
The deftinies will curfe thee for this stroke;
They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck'st a flower.
Love's golden arrow at him should have fled,
And not death's ebon dart, to strike him dead.

Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok'st such weeping?
What may a heavy groan advantage thee?
Why haft thou cast into eternal sleeping
Thofe eyes that taught all other eyes to fee?
Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour,
Since her beft work is ruin'd with thy rigour.

Here overcome, as one full of despair,
She vail'd her eye-lids, who, like fluices, stopp'd
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair
In the fweet channel of her bofom dropp'd;
But through the flood-gates breaks the filver rain,
And with his strong courfe opens them again.

O how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!
Her eyes feen in her tears, tears in her eye;
Both crystals, where they view'd each other's forrow,
Sorrow, that friendly fighs fought still to dry;

But like a ftormy day, now wind, now rain,
Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.

Variable paffions throng her constant woe,
As striving which should best become her grief;
All entertain'd, each paffion labours fo,
That every prefent forrow feemeth chief,

But none is beft; then join they all together,
Like many clouds confulting for foul weather.

this, far off the hears fome huntfman holla ;
A nurse's fong ne'er pleas'd her babe so well:
The dire imagination fhe did follow
This found of hope doth labour to expell;
For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,
And flatters her, it is Adonis' voice.

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Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,
Being prifon'd in her eye, like pearls in glass;
Yet fometimes falls an orient drop befide,
Which her cheek melts, as fcorning it fhould pass,
To wash the foul face of the fluttish ground,
Who is but drunken when she feemeth drown'd.

O hard-believing love, how ftrange it seems
Not to believe, and yet too credulous!
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes,
Despair and hope make thee ridiculous:

The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,
With likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.

Now the unweaves the web that she had wrought;
Adonis lives, and death is not to blame;

It was not the that call'd him all to naught`;
Now fhe adds honour to his hateful name;

She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,
Imperial fupreme of all mortal things.

No, no (quoth fhe) fweet Death, I did but jeft;
Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear,

When as I met the boar, that bloody beast,
Which knows no pity, but is still severe;

Then, gentle fhadow (truth I must confefs)
I rail'd on thee, fearing my love's decease.

'Tis not my fault: the boar provok'd my tongue;
Be wreak'd on him, invifible commander;
'Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong;
I did but act, he's author of thy flander:

Grief hath two tongues, and never woman yet
Could rule them both, without ten women's wit.

Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,

Her rash suspect she doth extenuate ;
And that his beauty may the better thrive,
With death she humbly doth infinuate ;

Tells him of trophies, ftatues, tombs; and stories
His victories, his triumphs, and his glories.

O Jove, quoth fhe, how much a fool was I,
To be of fuch a weak and filly mind,

To wail his death, who lives, and must not die,
Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind!

For he being dead, with him is beauty flain,
And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.

Fie, fie, fond love, thou art so full of fear,
As one with treasure laden, hemm'd with thieves;
Trifles, unwitneffed with eye or ear,

Thy coward heart with falfe bethinking grieves.
Even at this word fhe hears a merry horn,
Whereat the leaps, that was but late forlorn.

As faulcon to the lure, away fhe flies;
The grass stoops not, fhe treads on it fo light;
And in her hafte unfortunately fpies
The foul boar's conqueft on her fair delight;
Which feen, her eyes, as murder'd with the view,
Like stars afham'd of day, themselves withdrew.

Or, as the fnail, whofe tender horns being hit,
Shrinks backward in his fhelly cave with pain,
And there, all fmother'd up, in fhade doth fit,
Long after fearing to creep forth again;

So, at his bloody view, her eyes are fled
Into the deep dark cabins of her head,

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