203

O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,
Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die;
And let belief and life encounter so,
As doth the fury of two desperate men,
Which, in the very meeting, fall and die.

204

Even through the hollow eyes of death, I spy life peering; but I dare not say

16—iii. 1.

How near the tidings of our comfort is.

17-ii. 1.

205

The last she spake

Was, Antony! most noble Antony!

Then in the midst of a tearing groan did break
The name of Antony; it was divided
Between her heart and lips.

206

I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,
So fill'd, and so becoming.

207

Are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?

208

30 iv. 12.

13-iii. 3.

Look, who comes here! a grave unto a soul;
Holding the eternal spirit against her will,

In the vile prison* of afflicted breath.

36-iv. 7.

16-iii. 4.

209

A cyprus,f not a bosom,

Hides my poor heart.

4-iii. 1.

210

That

Ah, cut my lace asunder!

my pent heart may have some scope to beat, Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news.

"Vile body."-Phil. iii. 21.

24-iv. 1.

Transparent stuff.

211

Why tell you me of moderation?

The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,
And violenteth in a sense as strong

As that which causeth it: How can I moderate it?
If I could temporize with my affection,

Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,
The like allayment could I give my grief;
My love admits no qualifying dross:

No more my grief, in such a precious loss.

26-iv. 4.

212

I do note,

That grief and patience, rooted in him both,
Mingle their spurs* together.

Grow, patience!
And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine

His perishing root, with the increasing vine!

213

31-iv. 2.

I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew,
Perchance, shall dry your pities; but I have
That honourable grief lodged here, which burns
Worse than tears drown.

214

13-ii. 1.

O how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!
Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;

Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow :
Sorrow, that friendly sighs sought still to dry;
But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,

Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.

Poems.

215

Weep I cannot,

But my heart bleeds.

13-iii. 3.

216

O, how this motherf swells up toward my heart!

* Spurs are the roots of trees.

† A disease called the mother.

The tempest in my mind

Doth from my senses take all feeling else,

Save what beats there.

219

O, melancholy!

34-iii. 4.

Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find
The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare
Might easiliest harbour in?

220

31-iv. 2.

Grief hath changed me since you saw me last;
And careful hours, with Time's deformed hand,
Have written strange defeatures* in my face.

221

14-v. 1.

The incessant care and labour of his mind
Hath wrought the mure,† that should confine it in,
So thin, that life looks through, and will break out.

222

O, what a noble combat hast thou fought,
Between compulsion and a brave respect!‡
Let me wipe off this honourable dew,
That silvery doth progress on thy cheeks.
My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,
Being an ordinary inundation;

But this effusion of such manly drops,

19-iv. 4.

This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul,
Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amazed
Than I had seen the vaulty top of heaven
Figured quite o'er with burning meteors.

* Alteration of features.

Love of country.

† Worked the wall.

Lift up thy brow,

And with a great heart heave away this storm :
Commend these waters to those baby eyes
That never saw the giant world enraged;
Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,
Full warm of blood, of mirth, of gossiping.

223

Nobly he yokes

A smiling with a sigh: as if the sigh

16 v. 2.

Was that it was, for not being such a smile;
The smile mocking the sigh, that it would fly
From so divine a temple, to commix

With winds, that sailors rail at.

224

31-iv. 2.

Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom :
My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse;
And all my powers do their bestowing lose
Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring
The eye of majesty.

225

Grieved I, I had but one?

26-iii. 2.

Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame ?*
O, one too much by thee! Why had I one?
Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes?
Why had I not with charitable hand,
Took up a beggar's issue at my gates;
Who smirched thus, and mired with infamy
I might have said, No part of it is mine,
This shame derives itself from unknown loins?
But mine, and mine I loved, and mine I praised,
And mine that I was proud on; mine so much,
That I myself was to myself not mine,
Valuing of her; why, she-O, she is fallen
Into a pit of ink! that the wide sea
Hath drops too few to wash her clean again;
And salt too little, which may season give
To her foul tainted flesh.

* Disposition of things.

6-iv. 1.

† Sullied.

226

Being that I flow in grief,

The smallest twine may lead me.*

227

Tell me, what is't that takes from thee

6-iv. 1.

Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth;
And start so often, when thou sit'st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
And given my treasures, and my rights of thee,
To thick-eyed musing, and cursed melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,
And all the currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow,
Like bubbles in a late disturbed stream:
And in thy face strange motions have appear'd
Such as we see, when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden haste. O what portents are
these?
18-ii. 3.

228

Give me no help in lamentation,

I am not barren to bring forth laments:

All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,

May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world! 24-ii. 2.

229

Why do you keep alone, Of sorriest fancies your companions making? Using those thoughts, which should indeed have died With them they think on? 15-iii. 2.

*This is one of our author's observations upon life. Men overpowered with distress, eagerly listen to the first offers of relief, close with every scheme, and believe every promise. He that has no -longer any confidence in himself, is glad to repose his trust in any other that will undertake to guide him.

† Occurrences.

+ Drops.