Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE COMPLAINT OF ROSAMOND, by SAMUEL DANIEL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE COMPLAINT OF ROSAMOND, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Out from the horror of infernal deeps
Last Line: Who made me known, must make me live unseen.
Subject(s): Brooks; Clifford, Rosamund (d.1176); Death; Ghosts; Henry Ii, King Of England (1133-1189); Life; Soul; Supernatural; Streams; Creeks; Dead, The


"Out from the horror of infernal deeps
My poor afflicted ghost comes here to plain it,
Attended with my shame that never sleeps,
The spot wherewith my kind and youth did stain it;
My body found a grave where to contain it,
A sheet could hide my face, but not my sin,
For fame finds never tomb t' enclose it in.

"And which is worse, my soul is now denied
Her transport to the sweet Elysian rest,
The joyful bliss for ghosts repurified,
The ever-springing Gardens of the Blessed;
Charon denies me waftage with the rest,
And says my soul can never pass that river
Till lovers' sighs on earth shall it deliver.

"So shall I never pass, for how should I
Procure this sacrifice amongst the living?
Time hath long since worn out the memory
Both of my life and life's unjust depriving;
Sorrow for me is dead for aye reviving.
Rosamond hath little left her but her name,
And that disgraced, for time hath wronged the same.

"No muse suggests the pity of my case;
Each pen doth overpass my just complaint,
Whilst others are preferred, though far more base;
Shore's wife is graced, and passes for a saint;
Her legend justifies her foul attaint.
Her well-told tale did such compassion find
That she is passed, and I am left behind.

"Which seen with grief, my miserable ghost
(Whilom invested in so fair a veil,
Which whilst it lived was honored of the most,
And being dead, gives matter to bewail)
Comes to solicit thee, since others fail,
To take this task, and in thy woeful song
To form my case and register my wrong.

"Although I know thy just lamenting muse,
Toiled in th' affliction of thine own distress,
In others' cares hath little time to use,
And therefore mayst esteem of mine the less;
Yet as thy hopes attend happy redress,
Thy joys depending on a woman's grace,
So move thy mind a woeful woman's case.

"Delia may hap to deign to read our story,
And offer up her sigh among the rest,
Whose merit would suffice for both our glory,
Whereby thou mightst be graced, and I be blessed;
That indulgence would profit me the best:
Such power she hath, by whom thy youth is led,
To joy the living and to bless the dead;

"So I, through beauty made the woeful'st wight,
By beauty might have comfort after death;
That dying fairest, by the fairest might
Find life above on earth, and rest beneath.
She that can bless us with one happy breath,
Give comfort to thy muse to do her best,
That thereby thou mayst joy, and I might rest."

Thus said, forthwith moved with a tender care
And pity, which myself could never find,
What she desired my muse deigned to declare,
And therefore willed her boldly tell her mind;
And I more willing took this charge assigned
Because her griefs were worthy to be known,
And telling hers, might hap forget mine own.

"Then write," quoth she, "the ruin of my youth,
Report the downfall of my slipp'ry state;
Of all my life reveal the simple truth,
To teach to others what I learned too late.
Exemplify my frailty, tell how fate
Keeps in eternal dark our fortunes hidden,
And ere they come, to know them 'tis forbidden.
"For whilst the sunshine of my fortune lasted,
I joyed the happiest warmth, the sweetest heat
That ever yet imperious beauty tasted;
I had what glory ever flesh could get;
But this fair morning had a shameful set:
Disgrace darked honor, sin did cloud my brow,
As note the sequel, and I'll tell thee how.

"The blood I stained was good and of the best,
My birth had honor, and my beauty fame;
Nature and fortune joined to make me blessed,
Had I had grace t' have known to use the same.
My education showed from whence I came,
And all concurred to make me happy first,
That so great hap might make me more accursed.

"Happy lived I whilst parents' eye did guide
The indiscretion of my feeble ways,
And country home kept me from being eyed,
Where best unknown I spent my sweetest days;
Till that my friends mine honor sought to raise
To higher place, which greater credit yields,
Deeming such beauty was unfit for fields.

"From country then to court I was preferred,
From calm to storms, from shore into the deeps;
There where I perished, where my youth first erred;
There where I lost the flower which honor keeps;
There where the worser thrives, the better weeps.
Ah me, poor wench, on this unhappy shelf
I grounded me, and cast away myself.

"For thither comed (when years had armed my youth
With rarest proof of beauty ever seen,
When my reviving eye had learned the truth,
That it had power to make the winter green,
And flower affections whereas none had been),
Soon could I teach my brow to tyrannize,
And make the world do homage to mine eyes.

"For age, I saw, though years with cold conceit
Congealed their thoughts against a warm desire,
Yet sigh their want, and look at such a bait;
I saw how youth was wax before the fire;
I saw by stealth, I framed my look a liar,
Yet well perceived how fortune made me then
The envy of my sex, and wonder unto men.

"Look how a comet at the first appearing
Draws all men's eyes with wonder to behold it;
Or as the saddest tale at sudden hearing
Makes silent list'ning unto him that told it;
So did my speech when rubies did unfold it;
So did the blazing of my blush appear,
T' amaze the world, that holds such sights so dear.

"Ah, beauty, siren, fair enchanting good!
Sweet silent rhetoric of persuading eyes!
Dumb eloquence, whose power doth move the blood
More than the words or wisdom of the wise!
Still harmony, whose diapason lies
Within a brow, the key which passions move
To ravish sense and play a world in love!

"What might I then not do whose power was such?
What cannot women do that know their power?
What women knows it not (I fear too much)
How bliss or bale lies in their laugh or lour,
Whilst they enjoy their happy blooming flower,
Whilst nature decks her with her proper fair,
Which cheers the world, joys each sight, sweetens th' air?

"Such one was I, my beauty was mine own,
No borrowed blush which bankrupt beauties seek;
That new-found shame, a sin to us unknown,
Th' adulterate beauty of a falsed cheek,
Vile stain to honor and to women eke,
Seeing that time our fading must detect,
Thus with defect to cover our defect.

"Impiety of times, chastity's abater,
Falsehood, wherein thyself thyself deniest;
Treason to counterfeit the seal of nature,
The stamp of heav'n, impressed by the highest;
Disgrace unto the world, to whom thou liest;
Idol unto thyself, shame to the wise,
And all that honors thee idolatrize.

"Far was that sin from us whose age was pure,
When simple beauty was accounted best,
The time when women had no other lure
But modesty, pure cheeks, a virtuous breast.
This was the pomp wherewith my youth was blessed;
These were the weapons which mine honor won
In all the conflicts that mine eyes begun;

"Which were not small -- I wrought on no mean object;
A crown was at my feet, scepters obeyed me;
Whom fortune made my king, love made my subject;
Who did command the land most humbly prayed me;
Henry the second, that so highly weighed me,
Found well by proof the privilege of beauty,
That it hath power to countermand all duty.

"For after all his victories in France,
Triumphing in the honor of his deeds,
Unmatched by sword, was vanquished by a glance,
And hotter wars within his bosom breeds --
Wars whom whole legions of desires feeds,
Against all which my chastity opposes;
The field of honor virtue never loses.

"No armor might be found that could defend
Transpiercing rays of crystal-pointed eys;
No stratagem, no reason, could amend;
No, not his age -- yet old men should be wise,
But shows deceive, outward appearance lies;
Let none for seeming so think saints of others,
For all are men, and all have sucked their mothers.

"Who would have thought a monarch would have ever
Obeyed his handmaid of so mean a state,
Vulture ambition feeding on his liver,
Age having worn his pleasures out of date?
But hap comes never or it comes too late,
For such a dainty which his youth found not,
Unto his feeble age did chance allot.

"Ah, fortune, never absolutely good,
For that some cross still counterchecks our luck;
As here behold, the incompatible blood
Of age and youth was that whereon we stuck;
Whose loathing we from nature's breasts do such,
As opposite to what our blood requires,
For equal age doth equal like desires.

"But mighty men in highest honor sitting
Nought but applause and pleasure can behold;
Soothed in their liking, careless what is fitting,
May not be suffered once to think they're old,
Not trusting what they see, but what is told.
Mis'rable fortune, to forget so far
The state of flesh, and what our frailties are!

"Yet must I needs excuse so great defect,
For drinking of the Lethe of mine eyes,
H' is forced forget himself and all respect
Of majesty, whereon his state relies,
And now of loves and pleasures must devise;
For thus revived again, he serves and sue'th,
And seeks all means to undermine my youth.

"Which never by assault he could recover,
So well encamped in strength of chaste desires;
My clean-armed thoughts repelled an unchaste lover;
The crown that could command what it requires
I lesser prized than chastity's attires --
Th' unstained veil, which innocents adorns,
Th' ungathered rose, defended with the thorns.

"And safe mine honor stood, till that in truth
One of my sex, of place and nature bad,
Was set in ambush to entrap my youth,
One in the habit of like frailty clad,
One who the liv'ry of like weakness had,
A seeming matron, yet a sinful monster,
As by her words the chaster sort may conster.

"She set upon me with the smoothest speech
That court and age could cunningly devise;
The one authentic made her fit to teach,
The other learned her how to subtilize.
Both were enough to circumvent the wise, --
A document that well may teach the sage
That there's no trust in youth, nor hope in age.

"'Daughter,' saith she, 'behold thy happy chance,
That hast the lot cast down into thy lap,
Whereby thou mayst thy honor great advance,
Whilst thou, unhappy, wilt not see thy hap;
Such fond respect thy youth doth so enwrap,
T' oppose thyself against thine own good fortune,
That points thee out, and seems thee to importune.

"'Dost thou not see how that thy king, thy Jove,
Lightens forth glory on thy dark estate,
And showers down gold and treasure from above,
Whilst thou dost shut thy lap against thy fate?
Fie, fondling, fie, thou wilt repent too late
The error of thy youth, that canst not see
What is the fortune that doth follow thee.

"'Thou must not think thy flower can always flourish,
And that thy beauty will be still admired,
But that those rays which all these flames do nourish,
Cancelled with time, will have their date expired,
And men will scorn what now is so desired.
Our frailty's doom is written in the flowers,
Which flourish now and fade ere many hours.

"'Read in my face the ruins of my youth,
The wrack of years upon my aged brow;
I have been fair, I must confess the truth,
And stood upon as nice respects as thou.
I lost my time, and I repent it now;
But were I to begin my youth again,
I would redeem the time I spent in vain.

"'But thou hast years, and privilege to use them,
Thy privilege doth bear beauty's great seal;
Besides, the law of nature doth excuse them
To whom thy youth may have a just appeal.
Esteem not fame more than thou dost thy weal;
Fame, whereof the world seems to make such choice,
Is but an echo and an idle voice.

"'Then why should this respect of honor bound us
In th' imaginary lists of reputation? --
Titles which cold severity hath found us,
Breath of the vulgar, foe to recreation,
Melancholy's opinion, custom's relation,
Pleasure's plague, beauty's scourge, hell to the fair,
To leave the sweet for castles in the air.

"'Pleasure is felt, opinion but conceived;
Honor a thing without us, not our own,
Whereof we see how many are bereaved,
Which should have reaped the glory they had sown;
And many have it, yet unworthy known.
So breathes his blasts this many-headed beast,
Whereof the wisest have esteemed least.

"'The subtle city women, better learned,
Esteem them chaste enough that best seem so,
Who, though they sport, it shall not be discerned:
Their face bewrays not what their bodies do.
'Tis wary walking that doth safeliest go;
With show of virtue, as the cunning knows,
Babes are beguiled with sweets, and men with shows.

"'Then use thy talent, youth shall be thy warrant,
And let not honor from thy sports detract;
Thou must not fondly think thyself transparent,
That those who see thy face can judge the fact.
Let her have shame that cannot closely act;
And seem thee chaste, which is the chiefest art,
For what we seem each sees, none knows our heart.

"'The mighty, who can with such sins dispense,
Instead of shame do honors great bestow;
A worthy author doth redeem th' offense,
And makes the scarlet sin as white as snow.
The majesty that doth descend so low
Is not defiled, but pure remains therein,
And being sacred, sanctifies the sin.

"'What, dost thou stand on this, that he is old?
Thy beauty hath the more to work upon;
Thy pleasure's want shall be supplied with gold;
Cold age dotes most when th' heat of youth is gone.
Enticing words prevail with such a one;
Alluring shows most deep impression strikes,
For age is prone to credit what it likes.'

"Here interrupt, she leaves me in a doubt;
When lo, began the combat in my blood,
Seeing my youth environed round about,
The ground uncertain where my reasons stood;
Small my defense to make my party good
Against such powers, which were so surely laid
To overthrow a poor unskillful maid.

"Treason was in my bones, myself conspiring
To sell myself to lust, my soul to sin;
Pure-blushing shame was even in retiring,
Leaving the sacred hold it gloried in.
Honor lay prostrate for my flesh to win,
When cleaner thoughts my weakness can upbray
Against myself, and shame did force me say:

"'Ah, Rosamond, what doth thy flesh prepare?
Destruction to thy days, death to thy fame;
Wilt thou betray that honor held with care,
T' entomb with black reproach a spotted name,
Leaving thy blush the colors of thy shame;
Opening thy feet to sin, thy soul to lust,
Graceless to lay thy glory in the dust?

"'Nay, first let th' earth gape wide to swallow thee,
And shut thee up in bosom with her dead,
Ere serpent tempt thee taste forbidden tree,
Or feel the warmth of an unlawful bed,
Suff'ring thyself by lust to be misled;
So to disgrace thyself and grieve thine heirs,
That Clifford's race should scorn thee one of theirs.

"'Never wish longer to enjoy the air
Than that thou breath'st the breath of chastity,
Longer than thou preserv'st thy soul as fair
As is thy face, free from impurity --
Thy face that makes thee'admired in ev'ry eye;
Where nature's care such rarities enrol,
Which, used amiss, may serve to damn thy soul.

"'But what? he is my king, and may constrain me;
Whether I yield or not I live defamed;
The world will think authority did gain me,
I shall be judged his love, and so be shamed;
We see the fair condemned, that never gamed.
And if I yield, 'tis honorable shame;
If not, I live disgraced, yet thought the same.

"'What way is left thee then, unhappy maid,
Whereby thy spotless foot may wander out
This dreadful danger which thou seest is laid,
Wherein thy shame doth compass thee about?
Thy simple years cannot resolve this doubt;
Thy youth can never guide thy foot so even,
But in despite some scandal will be given.'

"Thus stood I balanced equally precise,
Till my frail flesh did weigh me down to sin;
Till world and pleasure made me partialize,
And glitt'ring pomp my vanity did win;
When to excuse my fault my lusts begin,
And impious thoughts alleged this wanton clause,
That though I sinned, my sin had honest cause.

"So well the golden balls cast down before me
Could entertain my course, hinder my way;
Whereat my reckless youth, stooping to store me,
Lost me the goal, the glory, and the day.
Pleasure had set my well-schooled thoughts to play,
And bade me use the virtue of mine eyes,
For sweetly'it fits the fair to wantonize.

"Thus wrought to sin, soon was I trained from court
T' a solitary grange, there to attend
The time the king should thither make resort,
Where he love's long-desired work should end.
Thither he daily messages doth send,
With costly jewels, orators of love,
Which (ah, too well men know) do women move.

"The day before the night of my defeature
He greets me with a casket richly wrought,
So rare that art did seem to strive with nature
T' express the cunning workman's curious thought;
The mystery whereof I prying sought,
And found engraven on the lid above
Amymone, how she with Neptune strove --

"Amymone, old Danaus' fairest daughter,
As she was fetching water all alone
At Lerna, whereas Neptune came and caught her,
From whom she strived and struggled to be gone,
From whom she strived and struggled to be gone,
Beating the air with cries and piteous moan;
But all in vain, with him sh' is forced to go.
'Tis shame that men should use poor maidens so.

"There might I see described how she lay
At those proud feet not satisfied with prayer;
Wailing her heavy hap, cursing the day,
In act so piteous to express despair.
And by how much more grieved, so much more fair;
Her tears upon her cheeks, poor careful girl,
Did seem, against the sun, crystal and pearl;

"Whose pure clear streams, which lo, so fair appears,
Wrought hotter flames; O miracle of love,
That kindles fire in water, heat in tears,
And makes neglected beauty mightier prove,
Teaching afflicted eyes affects to move;
To show that nothing ill becomes the fair
But cruelty, that yields unto no prayer.

"This having viewed, and therewith something moved,
Figured I found within the other squares
Transformed Io, Jove's dearly loved,
In her affliction how she strangely fares,
Strangely distressed (O beauty, born to cares),
Turned to a heifer, kept with jealous eyes,
Always in danger of her hateful spies.

"These precedents presented to my view,
Wherein the presage of my fall was shown,
Might have forewarned me well what would ensue,
And others' harms have made me shun mine own;
But fate is not prevented, though foreknown,
For that must hap, decreed by heav'nly powers,
Who work our fall, yet make the fault still ours.

"Witness the world, wherein is nothing rifer
Than miseries unkenned before they come.
Who can the characters of chance decipher,
Written in clouds, of our concealed doom?
Which though perhaps have been revealed to some,
Yet that so doubtful (as success did prove them),
That men must know they have the heav'ns above them.

"I saw the sin wherein my foot was ent'ring,
I saw how that dishonor did attend it,
I saw the shame whereon my flesh was vent'ring,
Yet had I not the power for to defend it.
So weak is sense when error hath condemned it;
We see what's good, and thereto we consent us,
But yet we choose the worst, and soon repent us.

"And now I come to tell the worst of illness,
Now draws the date of mine affliction near;
Now when the dark had wrapped up all in stillness,
And dreadful black had dispossessed the clear;
Comed was the night, mother of sleep and fear,
Who with her sable mantle friendly covers
The sweet-stol'n sports of joyful meeting lovers.

"When lo, I joyed my lover not my love,
And felt the hand of lust most undesired;
Enforced th' unproved bitter sweet to prove,
Which yields no mutual pleasure when 'tis hired.
Love's not constrained, nor yet of due required;
Judge they who are unfortunately wed,
What 'tis to come unto a loathed bed.

"But soon his age received his short contenting,
And sleep sealed up his languishing desires;
When he turns to his rest, I to repenting,
Into myself my waking thought retires.
My nakedness had proved my senses liars;
Now opened were mine eyes to look therein,
For first we taste the fruit, then see our sin.

"Now did I find myself unparadised
From those pure fields of my so clean beginning;
Now I perceived how ill I was advised;
My flesh gan loathe the new-felt touch of sinning.
Shame leaves us by degrees, not at first winning,
For nature checks a new offense with loathing,
But use of sin doth make it seem as nothing.

"And use of sin did work in me a boldness,
And love in him incorporates such zeal
That jealousy, increased with age's coldness,
Fearing to lose the joy of all his weal,
Or doubting time his stealth might else reveal,
H' is driven to devise some subtle way
How he might safeliest keep so rich a prey.

"A stately palace he forthwith did build,
Whose intricate innumerable ways
With such confused errors so beguiled
Th' unguided ent'rers with uncertain strays,
And doubtful turnings kept them in delays;
With bootless labor leading them about,
Able to find no way, nor in, nor out.

"Within the closed bosom of which frame,
That served a center to that goodly round,
Were lodgings, with a garden to the same,
With sweetest flowers that e'er adorned the ground,
And all the pleasures that delight hath found
To entertain the sense of wanton eyes --
Fuel of love, from whence lust's flames arise.

"Here I, enclosed from all the world asunder,
The minotaur of shame kept for disgrace,
The monster of fortune, and the world's wonder,
Lived cloistered in so desolate a case.
None but the king might come into the place,
With certain maids that did attend my need;
And he himself came guided by a thread.

"O jealousy, daughter of envy' and love,
Most wayward issue of a gentle sire;
Fostered with fears, thy father's joys t' improve;
Mirth-marring monster, born a subtle liar;
Hateful unto thyself, flying thine own desire,
Feeding upon suspect that doth renew thee;
Happy were lovers if they never knew thee.

"Thou hast a thousand gates thou enter'st by,
Conducting trembling passions to our heart;
Hundred-eyed Argus, ever-waking spy,
Pale hag, infernal Fury, pleasure's smart,
Envious observer, prying in ev'ry part,
Suspicious, fearful, gazing still about thee;
Oh, would to God that love could be without thee!

"Thou didst deprive, through false-suggesting fear,
Him of content, and me of liberty,
The only good that women hold so dear,
And turn'st my freedom to captivity;
First made a prisoner ere an enemy;
Enjoined the ransom of my body's shame,
Which, though I paid, could not redeem the same.

"What greater torment ever could have been
Than to enforce the fair to live retired?
For what is beauty if it be not seen?
Or what is 't to be seen unless admired?
And though admired, unless in love desired?
Never were cheeks of roses, locks of amber
Ordained to live imprisoned in a chamber.

"Nature created beauty for the view,
Like as the fire for heat, the sun for light;
The fair do hold this privilege as due
By ancient charter, to live most in sight,
And she that is debarred it hath not right.
In vain our friends in this use their dehorting,
For beauty will be where is most resorting.

"Witness the fairest streets that Thames doth visit,
The wondrous concourse of the glitt'ring fair;
For what rare women decked with beauty is it
That thither covets not to make repair?
The solitary country may not stay her;
Here is the center of all beauty's best,
Excepting Delia, left t' adorn the West.

"Here doth the curious with judicial eyes
Contemplate beauty gloriously attired;
And herein all our chiefest glory lies,
To live where we are praised and most desired.
Oh, how we joy to see ourselves admired,
Whilst niggardly our favors we discover;
We love to be beloved, yet scorn the lover.

"Yet would to God my foot had never moved
From country safety, from the fields of rest,
To know the danger to be highly loved,
And live in pomp to brave among the best;
Happy for me, better had I been blessed,
If I unluckily had never strayed,
But lived at home a happy country maid,

"Whose unaffected innocency thinks
No guileful fraud, as doth the courtly liver;
Sh' is decked with truth; the river where she drinks
Doth serve her for her glass, her counsel-giver;
She loves sincerely, and is loved ever;
Her days are peace, and so she ends her breath --
True life, that knows not what's to die till death.

"So should I never have been registered
In the black book of the unfortunate,
Nor had my name enrolled with maids misled,
Which bought their pleasures at so high a rate;
Nor had I taught through my unhappy fate
This lesson, which myself learned with expense,
How most it hurts that most delights the sense.

"Shame follows sin, disgrace is duly given,
Impiety will out, never so closely done;
No walls can hide us from the eyes of heaven,
For shame must end what wickedness begun;
Forth breaks reproach when we least think thereon;
And this is ever proper unto courts,
That nothing can be done but fame reports.

"Fame doth explore what lies most secret hidden,
Ent'ring the closet of the palace dweller,
Abroad revealing what is most forbidden,
Of truth and falsehood both an equal teller;
'Tis not a guard can serve for to expel her;
The sword of justice cannot cut her wings,
Nor stop her mouth from utt'ring secret things.

"And this our stealth she could not long conceal
From her whom such a forfeit most concerned,
The wronged queen, who could so closely deal
That she the whole of all our practice learned,
And watched a time when least it was discerned,
In absence of the king, to wreak her wrong
With such revenge as she desired long.

"The labyrinth she entered by that thread
That served a conduct to my absent lord,
Left there by chance, reserved for such a deed,
Where she surprised me whom she so abhored.
Enraged with madness, scarce she speaks a word,
But flies with eager fury to my face,
Off'ring me most unwomanly disgrace.

"Look how a tigress that hath lost her whelp
Runs fiercely raging through the woods astray,
And seeing herself deprived of hope or help,
Furiously assaults what's in her way,
To satisfy her wrath, not for a prey;
So fell she on me in outrageous wise
As could disdain and jealousy devise.

"And after all her vile reproaches used,
She forced me take the poison she had brought
To end the life that had her so abused,
And free her fears, and ease her jealous thought.
No cruelty her wrath would leave unwrought,
No spiteful act that to revenge is common,
For no beast fiercer than a jealous woman.

"Those hands that beauty's ministers had been
Must now give death, that me adorned of late;
That mouth that newly gave consent to sin
Must now receive destruction in thereat;
That body which my lusts did violate
Must sacrifice itself t' appease the wrong:
So short is pleasure, glory lasts not long.

"The poison, soon dispersed through all my veins,
had dispossessed my living senses quite,
When nought-respecting death, the last of pains,
Placed his pale colors, th' ensign of his might,
Upon his new-got spoil before his right;
Thence chased my soul, setting my day ere noon,
When I least thought my joys could end so soon.

"And as conveyed t' untimely funerals
My scarce-cold corpse, not suffered longer stay,
Behold, the king (by chance) returning, falls
T' encounter with the same upon the way,
As he repaired to see his dearest joy,
(Not thinking such a meeting could have been)
To see his love, and seeing been unseen.

"Judge those whom chance deprives of sweetest treasure,
What 'tis to lose a thing we hold so dear,
The best delight wherein our soul takes pleasure,
The sweet of life, that penetrates so near.
What passions feels that heart, enforced to bear
The deep impression of so strange a sight,
Tongue, pen, nor art can never show aright.

"Amazed he stands, nor voice nor body steers,
Words had no passage, tears no issue found,
For sorrow shut up words, wrath kept in tears;
Confused affects each other do confound;
Oppressed with grief his passions had no bound.
Striving to tell his woes, words would not come,
For light cares speak, when mighty griefs are dumb.

"At length extremity breaks out a way,
Through which th' imprisoned voice with tears attended
Wails out a sound that sorrows do bewray,
With arms a cross and eyes to heaven bended,
Vap'ring out sighs that to the skies ascended --
Sighs, the poor ease calamity affords,
Which serve for speech when sorrow wanteth words.

"'O heav'ns,' quoth he, 'why do mine eyes behold
The hateful rays of this unhappy sun?
Why have I light to see my sins controlled,
With blood of mine own shame thus vilely done?
How can my sight endure to look thereon?
Why doth not black eternal darkness hide
That from mine eyes my heart cannot abide?

"'What saw my life wherein my soul might joy?
What had my days, whom troubles still afflicted,
But only this to counterpoise annoy?
This joy, this hope, which death hath interdicted;
This sweet whose loss hath all distress inflicted;
This that did season all my sour of life,
Vexed still at home with broils, abroad in strife.

"'Vexed still at home with broils, abroad in strife,
Dissension in my blood, jars in my bed,
Distrust at board, suspecting still my life,
Spending the night in horror, days in dread:
Such life hath tyrants, and this life I led.
These miseries go masked in glitt'ring shows,
Which wise men see, the vulgar little knows.'

"Thus as these passions do him overwhelm,
He draws him near my body to behold it;
And as the vine married unto the elm
With strict embraces, so doth he enfold it;
And as he in his careful arms doth hold it,
Viewing the face that even death commends,
On senseless lips millions of kisses spends.

"'Pitiful mouth,' quoth he, 'that living gavest
The sweetest comfort that my soul could wish,
Oh, be it lawful now that dead thou havest
This sorrowing farewell of a dying kiss;
And you, fair eyes, containers of my bliss,
Motives of love, born to be matched never,
Entombed in your sweet circles, sleep forever.

"'Ah, how methinks I see death dallying seeks
To entertain itself in love's sweet place;
Decayed roses of discolored cheeks
Do yet retain dear notes of former grace,
And ugly death sits fair within her face;
Sweet remnants resting of vermilion red,
That death itself doubts whether she be dead.

"'Wonder of beauty, O receive these plaints,
The obsequies, the last that I shall make thee;
For lo, my soul that now already faints,
(That loved thee living, dead will not forsake thee)
Hastens her speedy course to overtake thee.
I'll meet my death, and free myself thereby,
For ah, what can he do that cannot die?

"'Yet ere I die, thus much my soul doth vow:
Revenge shall sweeten death with ease of mind;
And I will cause posterity shall know
How fair thou wert above all womenkind,
And after-ages monuments shall find
Showing thy beauty's title, not thy name,
Rose of the world, that sweetened so the same.'

"This said, though more desirous yet to say,
For sorrow is unwilling to give over,
He doth repress what grief would else bewray,
Lest that too much his passions might discover;
And yet respect scarce bridles such a lover,
So far transported that he knows not whither,
For love and majesty dwell ill together.

"Then were my funerals not long deferred,
But done with all the rites pomp could devise,
At Godstow, where my body was interred,
And richly tombed in honorable wise;
Where yet as now scarce any note descries
Unto these times the memory of me,
Marble and brass so little lasting be.

"For those walls, which the credulous devout
And apt-believing ignorant did found,
With willing zeal that never called in doubt
That time their works should ever so confound,
Lie like confused heaps as under ground;
And what their ignorance esteemed so holy,
The wiser ages do account as folly.

"And were it not thy favorable lines
Re-edified the wrack of my decays,
And that thy accents willingly assigns
Some farther date, and give me longer days,
Few in this age had known my beauty's praise;
But thus renewed, my fame redeems some time,
Till other ages shall neglect thy rhyme.

"Then when confusion in her course shall bring
Sad desolation on the times to come,
When mirthless Thames shall have no swan to sing,
All music silent, and the muses dumb;
And yet ev'n then it must be known to some
That once they flourished, though not cherished so,
And Thames had swans as well as ever Po.

"But here an end, I may no longer stay thee,
I must return t' attend at Stygian flood;
Yet ere I go, this one word more I pray thee:
Tell Delia now her sigh may do me good,
And will her note the frailty of our blood;
And if I pass unto those happy banks,
Then she must have her praise, thy pen her thanks."

So vanished she, and left me to return
To prosecute the tenor of my woes,
Eternal matter for my muse to mourn;
But ah, the world hath heard too much of those;
My youth such errors must no more disclose.
I'll hide the rest, and grieve for what hath been;
Who made me known, must make me live unseen.





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