Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud: Finding their enemy to be so curst, They all strain courtesy who shall cope him first. This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear, Through which it enters to surprise her heart; Who, overcome by doubt and bloodless fear, With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part; Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield, They basely fly and dare not stay the field. Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy, Till, cheering up her senses sore dismay'd, She tells them 'tis a causeless fantasy, And childish error, that they are afraid; Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more: And with that word she spied the hunted boar, Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red, Like milk and blood being mingled both together, A second fear through all her sinews spread, Which madly hurries her she knows not whither: This way she runs, and now she will no further, But back retires to rate the boar for murther. A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways, She treads the path that she untreads again; Her more than haste is mated with delays, Like the proceedings of a drunken brain, Full of respects, yet nought at all respecting, In hand with all things, nought at all effecting. Here kennel'd in a brake she finds a hound, And asks the weary caitiff for his master, And there another licking of his wound, 'Gainst venom'd sores the only sovereign plaster; And here she meets another sadly scowling, To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling. When he hath ceas'd his ill-resounding noise, Another flap-mouth'd mourner, black and grim, Against the welkin volleys out his voice; Another and another answer him, Clapping their proud tails to the ground below, Shaking their scratch'd ears, bleeding as they go. Look, how the world's poor people are amaz'd At apparitions, signs, and prodigies, Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gaz'd, Infusing them with dreadful prophecies; So she at these sad sighs draws up her breath, And, sighing it again, exclaims on Death. 'Hard-favour'd tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean, Hateful divorce of love,' — thus chides she Death, — 'Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what dost thou mean To stifle beauty and to steal his breath, Who when he liv'd, his breath and beauty set Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet? 'If he be dead, О no! it cannot be, Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it; О yes! it may; thou hast no eyes to see, But hatefully at random dost thou hit. Thy mark is feeble age, but thy false dart Mistakes that aim and cleaves an infant's heart. 'Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke, And, hearing him, thy power had lost his power. The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke; They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck'st a flower. Love's golden arrow at him should have fled, And not Death's ebon dart, to strike him dead. 'Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok'st such weeping? What may a heavy groan advantage thee? Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see? Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour, Since her best work is ruin'd with thy rigour.' Here overcome, as one full of despair, She vail'd her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopp'd The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp'd; But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain, And with his strong course opens them again.
