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| A Lover's Complaint | |
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| <BODY> | |
| <H1>A Lover's Complaint</H1> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| FROM off a hill whose concave womb reworded<BR> | |
| A plaintful story from a sistering vale,<BR> | |
| My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,<BR> | |
| And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale;<BR> | |
| Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,<BR> | |
| Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,<BR> | |
| Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| Upon her head a platted hive of straw,<BR> | |
| Which fortified her visage from the sun,<BR> | |
| Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw<BR> | |
| The carcass of beauty spent and done:<BR> | |
| Time had not scythed all that youth begun,<BR> | |
| Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,<BR> | |
| Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,<BR> | |
| Which on it had conceited characters,<BR> | |
| Laundering the silken figures in the brine<BR> | |
| That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,<BR> | |
| And often reading what contents it bears;<BR> | |
| As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,<BR> | |
| In clamours of all size, both high and low.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride,<BR> | |
| As they did battery to the spheres intend;<BR> | |
| Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied<BR> | |
| To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend<BR> | |
| Their view right on; anon their gazes lend<BR> | |
| To every place at once, and, nowhere fix'd,<BR> | |
| The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,<BR> | |
| Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride<BR> | |
| For some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved hat,<BR> | |
| Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;<BR> | |
| Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,<BR> | |
| And true to bondage would not break from thence,<BR> | |
| Though slackly braided in loose negligence.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| A thousand favours from a maund she drew<BR> | |
| Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,<BR> | |
| Which one by one she in a river threw,<BR> | |
| Upon whose weeping margent she was set;<BR> | |
| Like usury, applying wet to wet,<BR> | |
| Or monarch's hands that let not bounty fall<BR> | |
| Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| Of folded schedules had she many a one,<BR> | |
| Which she perused, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood;<BR> | |
| Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone<BR> | |
| Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;<BR> | |
| Found yet moe letters sadly penn'd in blood,<BR> | |
| With sleided silk feat and affectedly<BR> | |
| Enswathed, and seal'd to curious secrecy.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes,<BR> | |
| And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear:<BR> | |
| Cried 'O false blood, thou register of lies,<BR> | |
| What unapproved witness dost thou bear!<BR> | |
| Ink would have seem'd more black and damned here!'<BR> | |
| This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,<BR> | |
| Big discontent so breaking their contents.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh--<BR> | |
| Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew<BR> | |
| Of court, of city, and had let go by<BR> | |
| The swiftest hours, observed as they flew--<BR> | |
| Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew,<BR> | |
| And, privileged by age, desires to know<BR> | |
| In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| So slides he down upon his grained bat,<BR> | |
| And comely-distant sits he by her side;<BR> | |
| When he again desires her, being sat,<BR> | |
| Her grievance with his hearing to divide:<BR> | |
| If that from him there may be aught applied<BR> | |
| Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,<BR> | |
| 'Tis promised in the charity of age.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold<BR> | |
| The injury of many a blasting hour,<BR> | |
| Let it not tell your judgment I am old;<BR> | |
| Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power:<BR> | |
| I might as yet have been a spreading flower,<BR> | |
| Fresh to myself, If I had self-applied<BR> | |
| Love to myself and to no love beside.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'But, woe is me! too early I attended<BR> | |
| A youthful suit--it was to gain my grace--<BR> | |
| Of one by nature's outwards so commended,<BR> | |
| That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face:<BR> | |
| Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place;<BR> | |
| And when in his fair parts she did abide,<BR> | |
| She was new lodged and newly deified.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;<BR> | |
| And every light occasion of the wind<BR> | |
| Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.<BR> | |
| What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:<BR> | |
| Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind,<BR> | |
| For on his visage was in little drawn<BR> | |
| What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'Small show of man was yet upon his chin;<BR> | |
| His phoenix down began but to appear<BR> | |
| Like unshorn velvet on that termless skin<BR> | |
| Whose bare out-bragg'd the web it seem'd to wear:<BR> | |
| Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear;<BR> | |
| And nice affections wavering stood in doubt<BR> | |
| If best were as it was, or best without.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'His qualities were beauteous as his form,<BR> | |
| For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;<BR> | |
| Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm<BR> | |
| As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,<BR> | |
| When winds breathe sweet, untidy though they be.<BR> | |
| His rudeness so with his authorized youth<BR> | |
| Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'Well could he ride, and often men would say<BR> | |
| 'That horse his mettle from his rider takes:<BR> | |
| Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,<BR> | |
| What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop<BR> | |
| he makes!'<BR> | |
| And controversy hence a question takes,<BR> | |
| Whether the horse by him became his deed,<BR> | |
| Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'But quickly on this side the verdict went:<BR> | |
| His real habitude gave life and grace<BR> | |
| To appertainings and to ornament,<BR> | |
| Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case:<BR> | |
| All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,<BR> | |
| Came for additions; yet their purposed trim<BR> | |
| Pieced not his grace, but were all graced by him.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'So on the tip of his subduing tongue<BR> | |
| All kinds of arguments and question deep,<BR> | |
| All replication prompt, and reason strong,<BR> | |
| For his advantage still did wake and sleep:<BR> | |
| To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,<BR> | |
| He had the dialect and different skill,<BR> | |
| Catching all passions in his craft of will:<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'That he did in the general bosom reign<BR> | |
| Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,<BR> | |
| To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain<BR> | |
| In personal duty, following where he haunted:<BR> | |
| Consents bewitch'd, ere he desire, have granted;<BR> | |
| And dialogued for him what he would say,<BR> | |
| Ask'd their own wills, and made their wills obey.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'Many there were that did his picture get,<BR> | |
| To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;<BR> | |
| Like fools that in th' imagination set<BR> | |
| The goodly objects which abroad they find<BR> | |
| Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assign'd;<BR> | |
| And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them<BR> | |
| Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them:<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'So many have, that never touch'd his hand,<BR> | |
| Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.<BR> | |
| My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,<BR> | |
| And was my own fee-simple, not in part,<BR> | |
| What with his art in youth, and youth in art,<BR> | |
| Threw my affections in his charmed power,<BR> | |
| Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,<BR> | |
| Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;<BR> | |
| Finding myself in honour so forbid,<BR> | |
| With safest distance I mine honour shielded:<BR> | |
| Experience for me many bulwarks builded<BR> | |
| Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil<BR> | |
| Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'But, ah, who ever shunn'd by precedent<BR> | |
| The destined ill she must herself assay?<BR> | |
| Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content,<BR> | |
| To put the by-past perils in her way?<BR> | |
| Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;<BR> | |
| For when we rage, advice is often seen<BR> | |
| By blunting us to make our wits more keen.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,<BR> | |
| That we must curb it upon others' proof;<BR> | |
| To be forbod the sweets that seem so good,<BR> | |
| For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.<BR> | |
| O appetite, from judgment stand aloof!<BR> | |
| The one a palate hath that needs will taste,<BR> | |
| Though Reason weep, and cry, 'It is thy last.'<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'For further I could say 'This man's untrue,'<BR> | |
| And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;<BR> | |
| Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew,<BR> | |
| Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;<BR> | |
| Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;<BR> | |
| Thought characters and words merely but art,<BR> | |
| And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'And long upon these terms I held my city,<BR> | |
| Till thus he gan besiege me: 'Gentle maid,<BR> | |
| Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,<BR> | |
| And be not of my holy vows afraid:<BR> | |
| That's to ye sworn to none was ever said;<BR> | |
| For feasts of love I have been call'd unto,<BR> | |
| Till now did ne'er invite, nor never woo.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''All my offences that abroad you see<BR> | |
| Are errors of the blood, none of the mind;<BR> | |
| Love made them not: with acture they may be,<BR> | |
| Where neither party is nor true nor kind:<BR> | |
| They sought their shame that so their shame did find;<BR> | |
| And so much less of shame in me remains,<BR> | |
| By how much of me their reproach contains.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''Among the many that mine eyes have seen,<BR> | |
| Not one whose flame my heart so much as warm'd,<BR> | |
| Or my affection put to the smallest teen,<BR> | |
| Or any of my leisures ever charm'd:<BR> | |
| Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harm'd;<BR> | |
| Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,<BR> | |
| And reign'd, commanding in his monarchy.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''Look here, what tributes wounded fancies sent me,<BR> | |
| Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood;<BR> | |
| Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me<BR> | |
| Of grief and blushes, aptly understood<BR> | |
| In bloodless white and the encrimson'd mood;<BR> | |
| Effects of terror and dear modesty,<BR> | |
| Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,<BR> | |
| With twisted metal amorously impleach'd,<BR> | |
| I have received from many a several fair,<BR> | |
| Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd,<BR> | |
| With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,<BR> | |
| And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify<BR> | |
| Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''The diamond,--why, 'twas beautiful and hard,<BR> | |
| Whereto his invised properties did tend;<BR> | |
| The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard<BR> | |
| Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;<BR> | |
| The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend<BR> | |
| With objects manifold: each several stone,<BR> | |
| With wit well blazon'd, smiled or made some moan.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,<BR> | |
| Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,<BR> | |
| Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,<BR> | |
| But yield them up where I myself must render,<BR> | |
| That is, to you, my origin and ender;<BR> | |
| For these, of force, must your oblations be,<BR> | |
| Since I their altar, you enpatron me.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''O, then, advance of yours that phraseless hand,<BR> | |
| Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;<BR> | |
| Take all these similes to your own command,<BR> | |
| Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise;<BR> | |
| What me your minister, for you obeys,<BR> | |
| Works under you; and to your audit comes<BR> | |
| Their distract parcels in combined sums.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,<BR> | |
| Or sister sanctified, of holiest note;<BR> | |
| Which late her noble suit in court did shun,<BR> | |
| Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;<BR> | |
| For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,<BR> | |
| But kept cold distance, and did thence remove,<BR> | |
| To spend her living in eternal love.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave<BR> | |
| The thing we have not, mastering what not strives,<BR> | |
| Playing the place which did no form receive,<BR> | |
| Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves?<BR> | |
| She that her fame so to herself contrives,<BR> | |
| The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight,<BR> | |
| And makes her absence valiant, not her might.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''O, pardon me, in that my boast is true:<BR> | |
| The accident which brought me to her eye<BR> | |
| Upon the moment did her force subdue,<BR> | |
| And now she would the caged cloister fly:<BR> | |
| Religious love put out Religion's eye:<BR> | |
| Not to be tempted, would she be immured,<BR> | |
| And now, to tempt, all liberty procured.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''How mighty then you are, O, hear me tell!<BR> | |
| The broken bosoms that to me belong<BR> | |
| Have emptied all their fountains in my well,<BR> | |
| And mine I pour your ocean all among:<BR> | |
| I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,<BR> | |
| Must for your victory us all congest,<BR> | |
| As compound love to physic your cold breast.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''My parts had power to charm a sacred nun,<BR> | |
| Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,<BR> | |
| Believed her eyes when they to assail begun,<BR> | |
| All vows and consecrations giving place:<BR> | |
| O most potential love! vow, bond, nor space,<BR> | |
| In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,<BR> | |
| For thou art all, and all things else are thine.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''When thou impressest, what are precepts worth<BR> | |
| Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,<BR> | |
| How coldly those impediments stand forth<BR> | |
| Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!<BR> | |
| Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense,<BR> | |
| 'gainst shame,<BR> | |
| And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,<BR> | |
| The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| ''Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,<BR> | |
| Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine;<BR> | |
| And supplicant their sighs to you extend,<BR> | |
| To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine,<BR> | |
| Lending soft audience to my sweet design,<BR> | |
| And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath<BR> | |
| That shall prefer and undertake my troth.'<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'This said, his watery eyes he did dismount,<BR> | |
| Whose sights till then were levell'd on my face;<BR> | |
| Each cheek a river running from a fount<BR> | |
| With brinish current downward flow'd apace:<BR> | |
| O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!<BR> | |
| Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses<BR> | |
| That flame through water which their hue encloses.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies<BR> | |
| In the small orb of one particular tear!<BR> | |
| But with the inundation of the eyes<BR> | |
| What rocky heart to water will not wear?<BR> | |
| What breast so cold that is not warmed here?<BR> | |
| O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,<BR> | |
| Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'For, lo, his passion, but an art of craft,<BR> | |
| Even there resolved my reason into tears;<BR> | |
| There my white stole of chastity I daff'd,<BR> | |
| Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;<BR> | |
| Appear to him, as he to me appears,<BR> | |
| All melting; though our drops this difference bore,<BR> | |
| His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,<BR> | |
| Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,<BR> | |
| Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,<BR> | |
| Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,<BR> | |
| In either's aptness, as it best deceives,<BR> | |
| To blush at speeches rank to weep at woes,<BR> | |
| Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'That not a heart which in his level came<BR> | |
| Could 'scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,<BR> | |
| Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;<BR> | |
| And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim:<BR> | |
| Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;<BR> | |
| When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury,<BR> | |
| He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace<BR> | |
| The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd;<BR> | |
| That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,<BR> | |
| Which like a cherubin above them hover'd.<BR> | |
| Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?<BR> | |
| Ay me! I fell; and yet do question make<BR> | |
| What I should do again for such a sake.<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| <BLOCKQUOTE> | |
| 'O, that infected moisture of his eye,<BR> | |
| O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd,<BR> | |
| O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,<BR> | |
| O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd,<BR> | |
| O, all that borrow'd motion seeming owed,<BR> | |
| Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd,<BR> | |
| And new pervert a reconciled maid!'<BR> | |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> | |
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