The owl, night's herald, shrieks, 't is very late;
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest;

And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven's light
Do summon us to part, and bid good night.

"Now let me say 'Good night,' and so say you;
If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.”
"Good night," quoth she; and, ere he says " Adieu,"
The honey fee of parting tender'd is:

Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace;
Incorporate then they seem; face grows to face;

Till, breathless, he disjoin'd, and backward drew
The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,
Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,
Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drought:

He with her plenty press'd, she faint with dearth, (Their lips together glu'd,) fall to the earth.

Now quick Desire hath caught the yielding prey,
And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth;
Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,

Paying what ransom the insulter willeth;

Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,
That she will draw his lips' rich treasure dry.

And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,
With blindfold fury she begins to forage;
Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,
And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage;
Planting oblivion, beating reason back,

Forgetting shame's pure blush and honour's wrack.

Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing,
Like a wild bird being tam'd with too much handling,
Or as the fleet-foot roe that 's tir'd with chasing,
Or like the froward infant still'd with dandling,

He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,
While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.

What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering,
And yields at last to every light impression?
Things out of hope are compass'd oft with venturing,
Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission:

Affection faints not like a pale-fac'd coward,

But then woos best when most his choice is froward.

When he did frown, O, had she then gave over,
Such nectar from his lips she had not suck'd.

-leave-] "Leave" here means licence.

;

Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover
What though the rose have prickles, yet 't is pluck'd:
Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,
Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last.

For pity now she can no more detain him;
The poor fool prays her that he may depart:
She is resolv'd no longer to restrain him;
Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,
The which, by Cupid's bow she doth protest,
He carries thence incaged in his breast.

"Sweet boy," she says, "this night I'll waste in sorrow,
For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.
Tell me, Love's master, shall we meet to-morrow?
Say, shall we? shall we? wilt thou make the match? "
He tells her, no; to-morrow he intends

To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.

"The boar!" quoth she; whereat a sudden pale,
Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,
Usurps her cheek; she trembles at his tale,
And on his neck her yoking arms she throws:
She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck,
He on her belly falls, she on her back.

Now is she in the very lists of love,
Her champion mounted for the hot encounter:
All is imaginary she doth prove,

He will not manage her, although he mount her;
That worse than Tantalus' is her annoy,

To clip Elysium, and to lack her joy.

Even as poor birds, deceiv'd with painted grapes,a
Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw,
Even so she languisheth in her mishaps,
As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.
The warm effects which she in him finds missing,
She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.

But all in vain; good queen, it will not be:
She hath assay'd as much as may be prov'd;
Her pleading hath deserv'd a greater fee;
She's Love, she loves, and yet she is not lov'd.

"Fie, fie," he says, "you crush me; let me go;
You have no reason to withhold me so."

poor birds, deceiv'd with painted grapes,-] Alluding to the famous picture by Xeuxis, in which the grapes were depicted so naturally, that the birds pecked at them. bhelpless berries-] Berries that afford no help. In "The Comedy of Errors," Act I. Sc. 1, we have, "Our helpful ship," in the sense of the ship that came to

succour us.

VOL. VI.

D B

"Thou hadst been gone," quoth she, "sweet boy, ere this, But that thou told'st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.

O, be advis'd! thou know'st not what it is

With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore,
Whose tushes never-sheath'd he whetteth still,
Like to a mortala butcher, bent to kill.

"On his bow-back he hath a battle set
Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes;
His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret:
His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes;

Being mov'd, he strikes whate'er is in his way,
And whom he strikes his cruel tushes slay.

"His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd,
Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter;
His short thick neck cannot be easily harm'd;
Being ireful on the lion he will venture:

The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,
As fearful of him, part; through whom he rushes.

"Alas, he nought esteems that face of thine,
To which Love's eyes pay tributary gazes;
Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,
Whose full perfection all the world amazes;

But having thee at vantage,-wondrous dread!-
Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.

"O, let him keep his loathsome cabin still!
Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends:
Come not within his danger by thy will;
They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.
When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,
I fear'd thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.

"Didst thou not mark my face? was it not white?
Saw'st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?
Grew I not faint? and fell I not downright?
Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,

My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,
But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.

"For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy
Doth call himself Affection's sentinel;
Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,
And in a peaceful hour doth cry, 'Kill, kill;'
Distempering gentle Love in his desire,
As air and water do abate the fire.

·1

"This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,
This canker that eats up Love's tender spring,"
This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,

That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,
Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear,
That if I love thee, I thy death should fear:

"And more than so, presenteth to mine eye
The picture of an angry-chafing boar,
Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie
An image like thyself, all stain'd with gore;

Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed
Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.

"What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,

That tremble at the imagination?

The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,
And fear doth teach it divination :

I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,

If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.

"But if thou needs will hunt, be rul❜d by me;
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox, which lives by subtlety,
Or at the roe, which no encounter dare:

Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs,

And on thy well-breath'd horse keep with thy hounds.

"And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles,
How he outruns the wind, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musits through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.

"Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell;

And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer:
Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:

(*) Old text, overshut.

Love's tender spring,-] "Spring" here, as in a previous passage,—
"The tender spring upon thy tempting lip," &c.

and in "Lucrece,”

"Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring," &c.

means a young shoot, sprig, or budding.

b-musits] A musit, or muset, is a gap in a hedge. "We term the place where she [the hare] sitteth, her form; the place through which she goes to relief, her musit."-"Gentleman's Academy," 1595.

— keep,-] Dwell.

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11

"For there his smell with others being mingled,
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;

Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,
As if another chase were in the skies.

"By this, poor Wat," far off upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still:
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;

And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

"Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way;
Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
For misery is trodden on by many,
And being low never reliev'd by any.

"Lie quietly, and hear a little more;
Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar:
Unlike myself thou hear'st me moralize,
Applying this to that, and so to so;
For love can comment upon every woe.

"Where did I leave?"-"No matter where," quoth he;
"Leave me, and then the story aptly ends:

The night is spent."-" Why, what of that?" quoth she.
"I am," quoth he, "expected of my friends;

And now 't is dark, and going I shall fall.”
"In night," quoth she, "desire sees best of all.

"But if thou fall, O, then imagine this,
The earth in love with thee thy footing trips,
And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.

Rich preys make true-men thieves; so do thy lips
Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,

Lest she should steal a kiss, and die forsworn.

"Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:
Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine,
Till forging Nature be condemn'd of treason,
For stealing moulds from heaven that were divine,
Wherein she fram'd thee in high heaven's despite,
To shame the sun by day, and her by night.

- poor Wat,-]" Wat" is an old provincial name for the hare.

true-men-] In the language of Shakespeare's day, honest men were termed true-men. Thus in "Henry IV." Pt. I. Act II. Sc. 2,

"The thieves have bound the true-men'