CXVII.

Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,

Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time your own dear-purchased right;
That I have hoifted fail to all the winds

Which should transport me fartheft from your fight.
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on just proof furmise accumulate;
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate;
Since my appeal fays I did ftrive to prove
The conftancy and virtue of your love.

CXVIII.

Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,

We ficken to fhun sickness when we purge;
Even fo, being full of your ne'er-cloying fweetness,
To bitter fauces did I frame my feeding;

And fick of welfare found a kind of meetness

To be diseased, ere that there was true needing.

Thus policy in love, to anticipate

The ills that were not, grew to faults affured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state,
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured:

But thence I learn, and find the leffon true,
Drugs poifon him that fo fell fick of you.

CXIX.

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Diftill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,
Still lofing when I saw myself to win!

What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilft it hath thought itself so blessed never!

How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, In the distraction of this madding fever!

O benefit of ill! now I find true

That better is by evil ftill made better;

And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,

Grows fairer than at firft, more strong, far greater. So I return rebuked to my content,

And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.

CXX.

That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that forrow which I then did feel
Needs must I under my tranfgreffion bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by yours, you've paff'd a hell of time;
And I, a tyrant, have no leifure taken

To weigh how once I fuffer'd in your crime.
O, that our night of woe might have remember'd
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And foon to you, as you to me, then tender'd
The humble falve which wounded bosoms fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

CXXI.

'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure loft, which is so deemed
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give falutation to my sportive blood?

Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

Which in their wills count bad what I think good? No, I am that I am, and they that level

At my abuses reckon up their own:

I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel; By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown; Unless this general evil they maintain,

All men are bad and in their badness reign.