In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is lost:
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kind-
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy; And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness, Or made them swear against the thing they see; For I have sworn thee fair: more perjur'd I, To swear, against the truth, so foul a lie!
Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrow'd from this holy fire of love
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eye love's brand new-fir'd,
The boy for trial needs would touch my
breast;
I sick withal, the help of bath desir'd,
And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,
But found no cure; the bath for my help lies
Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.
The little love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep,
Came tripping by ; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;
And so the general of hot desire
Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy
For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.
FROM off a hill whose concave womb re-worded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I lay to list the sad-tun'd tale :
Ere long espy'd a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.
Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcase of a beauty spent and done.
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,
Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.
Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited1 characters,
Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted3 in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.
1 conceited] i. e. fanciful.
2 laund'ring] i. e. washing.
3 pelleted] i. e. made into pellets, balls.
Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride,
As they did battery to the spheres intend;
Sometime diverted their poor balls are ty'd
To the orb'd earth: sometimes they do extend
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and no where fix'd,
The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.
Her hair, nor loose, nor ty'd in formal plat,
Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride;
For some, untuck'd, descended her sheav'd5 hat,
Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;
Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,
And, true to bondage, would not break from thence,
Though slackly braided in loose negligence.
A thousand favours from a maund6 she drew
Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,
Which one by one she in a river threw,
Upon whose weeping margent she was set;
Like usury, applying wet to wet,
Or monarch's hands, that let not bounty fall
Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.
Of folded schedules had she many a one, Which she perus'd, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood; Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone,
• levell'd eyes, &c.] An allusion to a piece of ordnance. 5 sheav'd] i. e. straw.
Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;
Found yet more letters sadly penn'd in blood,
With sleided silk feat and affectedly
Enswath'd, and seal'd to curious secrecy.
These often bath'd she in her fluxive eyes,
And often kiss'd, and often 'gan 9 to tear;
Cried, "O false blood! thou register of lies,
"What unapproved witness dost thou bear!
"Ink would have seem'd more black and damned'
here!"
This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,
Big discontent so breaking their contents.
A reverend man that graz'd his cattle nigh,
Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew
Of court, of city, and had let go by
The swiftest hours, observed as they flew;
Towards this afflicted fancy 10 fastly drew;
And, privileg'd by age, desires to know
In brief, the grounds and motives of her woe.
So slides he down upon his grained bat,11
And comely-distant sits he by her side;
When he again desires her, being sat,
7 sleided] i. e. raw, untwisted.
8 feat] i.e. neatly, curiously.
2 'gan] Malone's conjecture for " gave."
10 fancy] i. e. enamoured one : fancy occurs several times
in this vol. in the sense of love.
11 bat] i. e. club.
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