"To make him moan, but pity not his moans : "Stone him with harden'd hearts, harder than

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stones;

"And let mild women to him lose their mildness, "Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness.

Let him have time to tear his curled hair, "Let him have time against himself to rave,

Let him have time of time's help to despair, "Let him have time to live a loathed slave, "Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave;

And time to see one that by alms doth live, "Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.

"Let him have time to see his friends his foes, "And merry fools to mock at him resort;

"Let him have time to mark how slow time goes

In time of sorrow, and how swift and short

"His time of folly and his time of sport:

And ever let his unrecalling crime 31 "Have time to wail the abusing of his time.

"O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad, "Teach me to curse him that thou taught'st this ill! "At his own shadow let the thief run mad,

"Himself himself seek every hour to kill!

“Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill:

31 unrecalling crime] i. e. crime not to be recalled.

"For who so base would such an office have "As slanderous death's-man to so base a slave?

"The baser is he, coming from a king, "To shame his hope with deeds degenerate. "The mightier man, the mightier is the thing "That makes him honour'd, or begets him hate; "For greatest scandal waits on greatest state. "The moon being clouded, presently is miss'd, "But little stars may hide them when they list.

"The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,

"And unperceiv'd fly with the filth away; "But if the like the snow-white swan desire, "The stain upon his silver down will stay. "Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious

day.

"Gnats are unnoted whereso'er they fly, "But eagles gaz'd upon with every eye.

"Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools! "Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators! "Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools, "Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters; "To trembling clients be you mediators:

"For me, I force 32 not argument a straw, "Since that my case is past the help of law.

32 force] i. e. regard.

"In vain I rail at Opportunity,

"At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful night;

“In vain I cavil with my infamy,

"In vain I spurn at my confirm'd despite :

"This helpless smoke of words doth me no right, "The remedy indeed to do me good,

"Is to let forth my foul, defiled blood.

"Poor hand, why quiver'st thou at this decree? "Honour thyself to rid me of this shame; "For if I die, my honour lives in thee,

"But if I live, thou liv'st in my defame :

Since thou could'st not defend thy loyal dame, "And wast afear'd to scratch her wicked foe, "Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.'

This said, from her betumbled couch she starteth.
To find some desperate instrument of death:
But this no-slaughter-house no tool imparteth,
To make more vent for passage of her breath,
Which thronging through her lips so vanisheth
As smoke from Etna, that in air consumes,

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Or that which from discharged cannon fumes.

In vain," quoth she, "I live, and seek in vain "Some happy mean to end a hapless life.

"I fear'd by Tarquin's falchion to be slain,

Yet for the selfsame purpose seek a knife:
But when I fear'd, I was a loyal wife;
"So am I now :-O no, that cannot be;

"Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.

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'O! that is gone, for which I sought to live,
"And therefore now I need not fear to die.
"To clear this spot by death, at least I give
"A badge of fame to slander's livery;
"A dying life to living infamy;

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"Poor helpless help, the treasure stolen away, "To burn the guiltless casket where it lay.

Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know "The stained taste of violated troth;

"I will not wrong thy true affection so, "To flatter thee with an infringed oath ;

"This bastard graff shall never come to growth: "He shall not boast, who did thy stock pol

lute,

"That thou art doting father of his fruit.

"Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought, "Nor laugh with his companions at thy state; "But thou shalt know thy interest was not bought

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Basely with gold, but stolen from forth thy gate. "For me, I am the mistress of my fate,

"And with my trespass never will dispense, “Till life to death acquit my forc'd offence.

"I will not poison thee with my attaint,
"Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coin'd excuses;
My sable ground of sin I will not paint,

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"To hide the truth of this false night's abuses:

My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes like sluces,

“As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale, Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale."

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By this, lamenting Philomel had ended
The well-tun'd warble of her nightly sorrow,
And solemn night with slow-sad gait descended
To ugly hell; when lo, the blushing morrow
Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow:
But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see,
And therefore still in night would cloister'd be.

Revealing day through every cranny spies,
And seems to point her out where she sits weeping;
To whom she sobbing speaks: "O eye of eyes,

Why pry'st thou through my window? leave

thy peeping:

[sleeping:

Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are

Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,

"For day hath nought to do what's done by

night."

Thus cavils she with every thing she sees:
True grief is fond 33 and testy as a child,
Who wayward once, his mood with nought agrees.
Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild;
Continuance tames the one: the other wild,

Like an unpractis'd swimmer plunging still, With too much labour drowns for want of skill. 83 fond] i. e. foolish.