A Lover's Complaint
rom off a hill whose concave womb reworded
- A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
- My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
- And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale;
- Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
- Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
- Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.
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- Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
- Which fortified her visage from the sun,
- Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
- The carcass of beauty spent and done:
- Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
- Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,
- Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.
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- Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
- Which on it had conceited characters,
- Laundering the silken figures in the brine
- That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
- And often reading what contents it bears;
- As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
- In clamours of all size, both high and low.
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- Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride,
- As they did battery to the spheres intend;
- Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied
- To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend
- Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
- To every place at once, and, nowhere fix'd,
- The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.
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- Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,
- Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride
- For some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved hat,
- Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;
- Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,
- And true to bondage would not break from thence,
- Though slackly braided in loose negligence.
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- A thousand favours from a maund she drew
- Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,
- Which one by one she in a river threw,
- Upon whose weeping margent she was set;
- Like usury, applying wet to wet,
- Or monarch's hands that let not bounty fall
- Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.
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- Of folded schedules had she many a one,
- Which she perused, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood;
- Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone
- Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;
- Found yet moe letters sadly penn'd in blood,
- With sleided silk feat and affectedly
- Enswathed, and seal'd to curious secrecy.
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- These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes,
- And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear:
- Cried “O false blood, thou register of lies,
- What unapproved witness dost thou bear!
- Ink would have seem'd more black and damned here!”
- This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,
- Big discontent so breaking their contents.
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- A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh—
- Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew
- Of court, of city, and had let go by
- The swiftest hours, observed as they flew—
- Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew,
- And, privileged by age, desires to know
- In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.
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- So slides he down upon his grained bat,
- And comely-distant sits he by her side;
- When he again desires her, being sat,
- Her grievance with his hearing to divide:
- If that from him there may be aught applied
- Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,
- 'Tis promised in the charity of age.
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- “Father,” she says, “though in me you behold
- The injury of many a blasting hour,
- Let it not tell your judgment I am old;
- Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power:
- I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
- Fresh to myself, If I had self-applied
- Love to myself and to no love beside.
-
- “But, woe is me! too early I attended
- A youthful suit—it was to gain my grace—
- Of one by nature's outwards so commended,
- That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face:
- Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place;
- And when in his fair parts she did abide,
- She was new lodged and newly deified.
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- “His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;
- And every light occasion of the wind
- Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.
- What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:
- Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind,
- For on his visage was in little drawn
- What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.
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- “Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
- His phoenix down began but to appear
- Like unshorn velvet on that termless skin
- Whose bare out-bragg'd the web it seem'd to wear:
- Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear;
- And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
- If best were as it was, or best without.
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- “His qualities were beauteous as his form,
- For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
- Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm
- As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,
- When winds breathe sweet, untidy though they be.
- His rudeness so with his authorized youth
- Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.
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- “Well could he ride, and often men would say
- ‘That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
- Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
- What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop
- he makes!’
- And controversy hence a question takes,
- Whether the horse by him became his deed,
- Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.
-
- “But quickly on this side the verdict went:
- His real habitude gave life and grace
- To appertainings and to ornament,
- Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case:
- All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,
- Came for additions; yet their purposed trim
- Pieced not his grace, but were all graced by him.
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- “So on the tip of his subduing tongue
- All kinds of arguments and question deep,
- All replication prompt, and reason strong,
- For his advantage still did wake and sleep:
- To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
- He had the dialect and different skill,
- Catching all passions in his craft of will:
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- “That he did in the general bosom reign
- Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,
- To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain
- In personal duty, following where he haunted:
- Consents bewitch'd, ere he desire, have granted;
- And dialogued for him what he would say,
- Ask'd their own wills, and made their wills obey.
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- “Many there were that did his picture get,
- To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;
- Like fools that in th' imagination set
- The goodly objects which abroad they find
- Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assign'd;
- And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them
- Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them:
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- “So many have, that never touch'd his hand,
- Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.
- My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
- And was my own fee-simple, not in part,
- What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
- Threw my affections in his charmed power,
- Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.
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- “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.
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- “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.
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- “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 judgment stand aloof!
- The one a palate hath that needs will taste,
- Though Reason weep, and cry, 'It is thy last.'
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- “For further I could say ‘This man's untrue,’
- And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;
- Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew,
- Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;
- Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;
- Thought characters and words merely but art,
- And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.
-
- “And long upon these terms I held my city,
- Till thus he gan besiege me: ‘Gentle maid,
- Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,
- And be not of my holy vows afraid:
- That's to ye sworn to none was ever said;
- For feasts of love I have been call'd unto,
- Till now did ne'er invite, nor never woo.
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- “‘All my offences that abroad you see
- Are errors of the blood, none of the mind;
- Love made them not: with acture they may be,
- Where neither party is nor true nor kind:
- They sought their shame that so their shame did find;
- And so much less of shame in me remains,
- By how much of me their reproach contains.
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- “‘Among the many that mine eyes have seen,
- Not one whose flame my heart so much as warm'd,
- Or my affection put to the smallest teen,
- Or any of my leisures ever charm'd:
- Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harm'd;
- Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,
- And reign'd, commanding in his monarchy.
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- “‘Look here, what tributes wounded fancies sent me,
- Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood;
- Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me
- Of grief and blushes, aptly understood
- In bloodless white and the encrimson'd mood;
- Effects of terror and dear modesty,
- Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly.
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- “‘And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,
- With twisted metal amorously impleach'd,
- I have received from many a several fair,
- Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd,
- With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,
- And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify
- Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.
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- “‘The diamond,—why, 'twas beautiful and hard,
- Whereto his invised properties did tend;
- The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard
- Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;
- The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend
- With objects manifold: each several stone,
- With wit well blazon'd, smiled or made some moan.
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- “‘Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,
- Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,
- Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,
- But yield them up where I myself must render,
- That is, to you, my origin and ender;
- For these, of force, must your oblations be,
- Since I their altar, you enpatron me.
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- “‘O, then, advance of yours that phraseless hand,
- Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;
- Take all these similes to your own command,
- Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise;
- What me your minister, for you obeys,
- Works under you; and to your audit comes
- Their distract parcels in combined sums.
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- “‘Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,
- Or sister sanctified, of holiest note;
- Which late her noble suit in court did shun,
- Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;
- For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,
- But kept cold distance, and did thence remove,
- To spend her living in eternal love.
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- “‘But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave
- The thing we have not, mastering what not strives,
- Playing the place which did no form receive,
- Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves?
- She that her fame so to herself contrives,
- The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight,
- And makes her absence valiant, not her might.
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- “‘O, pardon me, in that my boast is true:
- The accident which brought me to her eye
- Upon the moment did her force subdue,
- And now she would the caged cloister fly:
- Religious love put out Religion's eye:
- Not to be tempted, would she be immured,
- And now, to tempt, all liberty procured.
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- “‘How mighty then you are, O, hear me tell!
- The broken bosoms that to me belong
- Have emptied all their fountains in my well,
- And mine I pour your ocean all among:
- I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,
- Must for your victory us all congest,
- As compound love to physic your cold breast.
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- “‘My parts had power to charm a sacred nun,
- Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,
- Believed her eyes when they to assail begun,
- All vows and consecrations giving place:
- O most potential love! vow, bond, nor space,
- In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,
- For thou art all, and all things else are thine.
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- “‘When thou impressest, what are precepts worth
- Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,
- How coldly those impediments stand forth
- Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!
- Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense,
- 'gainst shame,
- And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,
- The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.
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- “‘Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,
- Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine;
- And supplicant their sighs to you extend,
- To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine,
- Lending soft audience to my sweet design,
- And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath
- That shall prefer and undertake my troth.’
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- “This said, his watery eyes he did dismount,
- Whose sights till then were levell'd on my face;
- Each cheek a river running from a fount
- With brinish current downward flow'd apace:
- O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!
- Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses
- That flame through water which their hue encloses.
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- “O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
- In the small orb of one particular tear!
- But with the inundation of the eyes
- What rocky heart to water will not wear?
- What breast so cold that is not warmed here?
- O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,
- Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.
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- “For, lo, his passion, but an art of craft,
- Even there resolved my reason into tears;
- There my white stole of chastity I daff'd,
- Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;
- Appear to him, as he to me appears,
- All melting; though our drops this difference bore,
- His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.
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- “In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
- Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
- Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,
- Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
- In either's aptness, as it best deceives,
- To blush at speeches rank to weep at woes,
- Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows.
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- “That not a heart which in his level came
- Could 'scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,
- Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;
- And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim:
- Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
- When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury,
- He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity.
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- “Thus merely with the garment of a Grace
- The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd;
- That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,
- Which like a cherubin above them hover'd.
- Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?
- Ay me! I fell; and yet do question make
- What I should do again for such a sake.
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- “O, that infected moisture of his eye,
- O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd,
- O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,
- O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd,
- O, all that borrow'd motion seeming owed,
- Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd,
- And new pervert a reconciled maid!”
- --oOo-- -