And therefore would they still in darkness be,
To have their unseen sin remain untold;

For they their guilt with weeping will unfold,
And grave, like water that doth eat in steel,
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 may find
Some purer chest to close so pure a mind. 761
Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her
spite

Against the unseen secrecy of night:

'O comfort-killing Night, image of hell!
Dim register and notary of shame!

Black stage for tragedies and murders fell!
Vast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame!
Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame!
Grim cave of death! whispering conspirator
With close-tongued treason and the ravisher!

'O hateful, vaporous, and foggy Night!
Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,
Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,
Make war against proportion'd course of time;
Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb

His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,
Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.

771

'With rotten damps ravish the morning air; Let their exhaled unwholesome breaths make sick The life of purity, the supreme fair,

Ere he arrive his weary noon-tide prick;

And let thy misty vapours march so thick,

780

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 silver-shining queen he would distain; Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defiled,

Through Night's black bosom should not peep again:

790

So should I have co-partners in my pain;
And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,
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 sit and pine,

Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine,
Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with

groans,

800

Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans. 'O Night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke, Let not the jealous Day behold that face Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak Immodestly lies martyr'd with disgrace! Keep still possession of thy gloomy place, That all the faults which in thy reign are made May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade! 'Make me not object to the tell-tale Day! The light will show, character'd* in my brow, The story of sweet chastity's decay, The impious breach of holy wedlock vow: Yea, the illiterate, that know not how

*Written.

810

To ciphert what is writ in learned books, †Decipher. Will quote my loathsome trespass 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 disputation,
The branches of another root are rotted,
And undeserved reproach to him allotted

821

That is as clear from this attaint of mine
As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.

830

'O unseen shame! invisible disgrace!
O unfelt sore! crest-wounding, private scar!
Reproach is stamp'd in Collatinus' face,
And Tarquin's eye may read the mot afar,
How he in peace is wounded, not in war.
Alas, how many bear such shameful blows,
Which not themselves, but he that gives them
knows!

'If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me,
From me by strong assault it is bereft.
My honey lost, and I, a drone-like bee,
Have no perfection of my summer left,
But robb'd and ransack'd by injurious theft:
In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept,
And suck'd the honey which thy chaste bee
kept.

'Yet am I guilty of thy honour's wrack;* *Wreck.
Yet for thy honour did I entertain him;
842
Coming from thee, I could not put him back,
For it had been dishonour to disdain him:
Besides, of weariness he did complain him,
And talk'd of virtue: O unlook'd-for evil,
When virtue is profaned in such a devil!

'Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?
Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?
Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud? 850
Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?

Or kings be breakers of their own behests?
But no perfection is so absolute,

That some impurity doth not pollute.

'The aged man that coffers-up his gold

Is plagued with cramps and gouts and painful fits;

And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,

But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,

And useless barns the harvest of his wits;

Having no other pleasure of his gain
But torment that it cannot cure his pain.

So then he hath it when he cannot use it,
And leaves it to be master'd by his young;
Who in their pride do presently abuse it:
Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.

The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours
Even in the moment that we call them ours.

860

'Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring; Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;

The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing;
What virtue breeds iniquity devours:

We have no good that we can say is ours,
But ill-annexed Opportunity

Or kills his life or else his quality.

'O Opportunity, thy guilt is great!

870

'Tis thou that executest the traitor's treason: Thou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get; Whoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season; 'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason; And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him, Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.

'Thou makest the vestal violate her oath;
Thou blow'st the fire when temperance is thaw'd;
Thou smother'st honesty, thou murder'st troth;
Thou foul abettor! thou rotorious bawd!
Thou plantest scandal ard displacest laud:

Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,
Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!

'Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,
Thy private feasting to a public fast,
Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name,
Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste:
Thy violent vanities can never last.
How comes it then, vile Opportunity,
Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?

890

When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend, And bring him where his suit may be obtain'd? When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end? Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain'd? Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd? 901

The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;

But they ne'er meet with Opportunity.

'The patient dies while the physician sleeps;
The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps;
Advice is sporting while infection breeds:
Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds:

Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages,
Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.

'When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee,
A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid:
They buy thy help; but Sin ne'er gives a fee,
He gratis comes; and thou art well appaid
As well to hear as grant what he hath said.
My Collatine would else have come to me
When Tarquin did, but he was stay'd by thee.

'Guilty thou art of murder and of theft,
Guilty of perjury and subornation,
Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift,
Guilty of incest, that abomination;
An accessary by thine inclination

To all sins past, and all that are to come,
From the creation to the general doom.

920

'Mis-shapen Time, copesmate of ugly Night,
Swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care,
Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,
Base watch of woes, sin's pack-horse, virtue's

Thou nursest all and murder'st all that are:

snare;

O, hear me then, injurious, shifting Time!
Be guilty of my death, since of my crime.

930