But now the mindful messenger, come back,
Brings home his lord and other company;
Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black:
And round about her tear-distained eye
Blue circles stream'd, like rainbows in the sky:
These water-galls in her dim element
Foretell new storms to those already spent.

Which when her sad-beholding husband saw,
Amazedly in her sad face he stares:

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Her eyes, though sod in tears, look'd red and raw,
Her lively colour kill'd with deadly cares.
He hath no power to ask her how she fares:

Both stood, like old acquaintance in a trance, Met far from home, wondering each other's chance.

By foul enforcement might be done to me,
From that, alas, thy Lucrece is not free.
"For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight,
With shining falchion in my chamber came
A creeping creature, with a flaming light,
And softly cried 'Awake, thou Roman dame,
And entertain my love; else lasting shame

On thee and thine this night I will inflict, 1630 If thou my love's desire do contradict. "For some hard-favour'd groom of thine,' quoth he,

'Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will,

I'll murder straight, and then I'll slaughter thee
And swear I found you where you did fulfil
The loathsome act of lust, and so did kill

The lechers in their deed: this act will be
My fame and thy perpetual infamy.'
"With this, I did begin to start and cry;
And then against my heart he sets his sword,
Swearing, unless I took all patiently,

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I should not live to speak another word;
So should my shame still rest upon record,
And never be forgot in mighty Rome
Th' adulterate death of Lucrece and her groom.

"Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,
And far the weaker with so strong a fear:
My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak;
No rightful plea might plead for justice there:
His scarlet lust came evidence to swear

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That my poor beauty had purloin'd his eyes; And when the judge is robb'd the prisoner dies. "O, teach me how to make mine own excuse! Or at the least this refuge let me find; Though my gross blood be stain'd with this abuse, Immaculate and spotless is my mind; That was not forced; that never was inclined To accessary yieldings, but still pure Doth in her poison'd closet yet endure."

Lo, here, the hopeless merchant of this loss, 1660 With head declined, and voice damm'd up with

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But more than "he" her poor tongue could not speak;

Till after many accents and delays,
Untimely breathings, sick and short assays, 1720

She utters this, "He, he, fair lords, 'tis he,
That guides this hand to give this wound to me."

Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast
A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed:
That blow did bail it from the deep unrest
Of that polluted prison where it breathed:
Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeathed
Her winged sprite, and through her wounds
doth fly

Life's lasting date from cancell'd destiny.

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FROM A LOVER'S COMPLAINT
"Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;
Finding myself in honour so forbid,
With safest distance I mine honour shielded:
Experience for me many bulwarks builded
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil
Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.

"But, ah, who ever shunn'd by precedent
The destined ill she must herself assay?
Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content,
To put the by-past perils in her way?
Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;
For when we rage, advice is often seen
By blunting us to make our wits more keen.

"Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,
That we must curb it upon others' proof:
To be forbod the sweets that seem so good,
For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.
O appetite, from judgement stand aloof!
The one a palate hath that needs will taste,
Though Reason weep, and cry 'It is thy last.'

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