Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?
Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in myself respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy
mind;

Those that can see thou lovest, and I am blind.

CL.

O, from what power hast thou this powerful might

With insufficiency my heart to sway?
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the
day?

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantize of skill That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds ? Who taught thee how to make me love thee

more

The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O, though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:
If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
More worthy I to be beloved of thee.

CLI.

Love is too young to know what conscience is;
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Theu, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treasons,
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason;
But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her 'love' for whose dear love I rise and
fall.

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. fired,

The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;

I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,
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.

A LOVER'S

COMPLAINT.

20

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laundering the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamors of all size, both high and low.
Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride,
As they did battery to the spheres intend;
Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied
To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and, nowhere fix'd,
The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.
Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,
Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride 30
For some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved
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.

These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes, 50 And often kiss'd, and often 'gan 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 grazed 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- 60
Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew,
And, privileged by age, desires to know
In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.

So slides he down upon his grained bat,
And comely-distant sits he by her side;
When he again desines her, being sat,
Her grievance with his hearing to divide :
If that from him there may be aught applied
Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,
'Tis promised in the charity of age.

70

Father,' she says, though in me you behold The injury of many a blasting hour, Let it not tell your judgment I am old;

Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power:
I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied
Love to myself and to no love beside.

'But, woe is me! too early I attended

A youthful suit-it was to gain my grace—
Of one by nature's outwards so commended,
That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face : 81
Love iack'd a dwelling, and made him her
place;

And when in his fair parts she did abide,
She was new lodged and newly deified.

Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear; And nice affections wavering stood in doubt If best were as it was, or best without.

'His qualities were beauteous as his form, 99
For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm
As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,
When winds breathe sweet, unruly though
they be.

His rudeness so with his authorized youth
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.

'Well could he ride, and often men would say
"That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
What rounds, what bounds, what course, what
stop he makes!"

And controversy hence a question takes, 110 Whether the horse by him became his deed, Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.

So many have, that never touch'd his hand, Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart. My woeful self, that did in freedom stand, And was my own fee-simple, not in part, What with his art in youth, and youth in art, Threw my affections in his charmed power, Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower. 'Yet did I not, as some my equals did, Demand of him, nor being desired yielded; Finding myself in honor so forbid, With safest distance I mine honor shielded : Experience for me many bulwarks builded Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil

Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil

150

6.66

'O, pardon me, in that my boast is true: The accident which brought me to her eye Upon the moment did her force subdue, And now she would the caged cloister fly: Religious love put out Religion's eye: 250 Not to be tempted, would she be immured, And now, to tempt, all liberty procured.

""How mighty then you are, O, hear me tell'
The broken bosoms that to me belong
Have emptied all their fountains in my well,
And mine I pour your ocean all among:

I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,

Must for your victory us all congest,

As compound love to physic your cold breast.

"My parts had power to charm a sacred

Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,
Believed her eyes when they to assail begun,
All vows and consecrations giving place:
O most potential love! vow, bond, nor space,
In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,
For thou art all, and all things else are thine.
""When thou impressest, what are precepts
worth

Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,
How coldly those impediments stand forth 269
Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!
†Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst

sense, 'gainst shame,

And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears, The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.

""Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,

Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine;

And supplicant their sighs to you extend,
To leave the battery that you make 'gainst

Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,

In either's aptness, as it best deceives, To blush at speeches rank to weep at woes, Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows: 'That not a heart which in his level came Could 'scape the hail of his all-hurting aim, Showing fair nature is both kind and tame ; And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim : [claim; Against the thing he sought he would exWhen he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury, He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity.

Thus merely with the garment of a Grace The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd ; That th' unexperient gave the tempter place, Which like a cherubin above them hover'd. Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?

Ay me! I fell; and yet do question make
What I should do again for such a sake.

320