Look as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk,
Unapt for tender fmell or speedy flight,
Make flow purfuit, or altogether balk
The prey wherein by nature they delight;
So furfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night:
His taste delicious, in digestion fouring,
Devours his will that liv'd by foul devouring.
O deeper fin than bottomlefs conceit
Can comprehend in ftill imagination!
Drunken defire muft vomit his receipt,
Ere he can fee his own abomination.
While luft is in his pride, no exclamation
Can curb his heat, or rein his rafh defire,
Till, like a jade, felf-will himself doth tire.
And then with lank and lean discolour'd cheek,
With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace,
Feeble defire, all recreant, poor, and meek,
Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case :
The flesh being proud, defire doth fight with grace,
For there it revels; and when that decays,
The guilty rebel for remission prays,
So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome,
Who this accomplishment fo hotly chased;
For now against himself he founds this doom,
That through the length of times he stands disgraced:
Befides, his foul's fair temple is defaced;
To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,
To ask the spotted princess how the fares.
She fays, her fubjects with foul infurrection
Have batter'd down her confecrated wall,
And by their mortal fault brought in subjection
Her immortality, and made her thrall
To living death, and pain perpetual:
Which in her prescience she controlled still,
But her fore-fight could not fore-stall their will.
Even in his thought, through the dark night he stealeth,
A captive victor, that hath loft in gain ;
Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth,
The fear that will, defpite of cure, remain,
Leaving his spoil perplex'd in greater pain.
She bears the load of luft he left behind,
And he the burthen of a guilty mind.
He, like a theevish dog, creeps fadly thence,
She like a wearied lamb lies panting there;
He fcouls, and hates himself for his offence,
She defperate, with her nails her flesh doth tear;
He faintly flies, fweating with guilty fear;
She stays exclaiming on the direful night,
He runs, and chides his vanish'd, loath'd, delight.
He thence departs a heavy convertite,
She there remains a hopeless cast-away :
He in his speed looks for the morning light,
She prays fhe never may behold the day:
For day, quoth fhe, night-scapes doth open lay;
And my true
true eyes
have never practis'd how
To cloak offences with a cunning brow.
They think not but that every eye can fee
The fame disgrace which they themselves behold;
And therefore would they still in darkness be,
To have their unfeen fin remain untold;
For they their guilt with weeping will unfold,
And grave, like water that doth eat in fteel,
Upon my
cheeks what helpless shame I feel.
Here she exclaims against repose and rest,
And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind.
She wakes her heart by beating on her breast,
And bids it leap from thence, where it
Some purer cheft, to close so pure a mind.
Frantick with grief thus breathes the forth her fpite
Against the unfeen fecrecy of night.
O comfort-killing night, image of hell!
Dim register and notary of shame!
Black stage for tragedies and murders fell !
Vaft fin-concealing chaos! nurfe of blame!
Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame!
Grim cave of death, whispering confpirator
With close-tongued treason and the ravisher!
O hateful, vaporous and foggy night,
Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,
Mufter thy mists to meet the eastern light,
Make war against proportion'd course of time!
Or if thou wilt permit the fun to climb
His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,
Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.
With rotten damps ravish the morning air;
Let their exhal'd unwholesome breaths make fick
The life of purity, the supreme fair,
Ere he arrive his weary noon-tide prick;
And let thy mifty vapours march fo thick,
That in their smoky ranks his smother'd light
May set at noon, and make perpetual night.
Were Tarquin night, (as he is but night's child,)
The filver-fhining queen he would distain;
Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defil'd,
Through night's black bosom should not peep again;
So should I have copartners in my pain:
And fellowship in woe doth woe affuage,
As palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage.
Where now I have no one to blush with me,
To cross their arms, and hang their heads with mine, To mask their brows, and hide their infamy;
But I alone, alone must fit and pine,
Seasoning the earth with fhowers of filver brine, Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans, Poor wafting monuments of lafting moans.
O night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke,
Let not the jealous day behold that face
Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak
Immodeftly lies martyr'd with disgrace!
Keep ftill poffeffion of thy gloomy place,
That all the faults which in thy reign are made,
May likewife be fepulcher'd in thy shade!
Make me not object to the tell-tale day!
The light will fhew, character'd in my brow,
The story of sweet chastity's decay,
The impious breach of holy wedlock's vow:
Yea, the illiterate that know not how
To 'cipher what is writ in learned books,
Will quote my loathsome trefpafs in my looks.
The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story,
And fright her crying babe with Tarquin's name;
The orator, to deck his oratory,
Will couple my reproach to Tarquin's shame:
Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame,
Will tie the hearers to attend each line,
How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.
Let my good name, that senseless reputation,
For Collatine's dear, love be kept unspotted:
If that be made a theme for difputation,
The branches of another root are rotted,
And undeferv'd reproach to him allotted,
That is as clear from this attaint of mine,
As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.
O unseen shame! invifible disgrace!
O unfelt fore! creft-wounding, private scar!
Reproach is ftamp'd in Collatinus' face,
And Tarquin's eye may read the mot afar,
How be in peace is wounded, not in war.
Alas, how many bear fuch fhameful blows,
Which not themselves, but he that gives them, knows!
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