"O, hateful, vaporous, and foggy Night!
Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,
Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,
Make war against proportion'd course of time;
Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb

His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,
Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.

"With rotten damps ravish the morning air;
Let their exhal'd unwholesome breaths make sick
The life of purity, the supreme fair,

Ere he arrive his weary noon-tide prick;
And let thy misty a vapours march so thick,
That in their smoky ranks his smother'd light
May set at noon, and make perpetual night.

"Were Tarquin Night (as he is but Night's child),
The silver-shining queen he would distain;
Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defil'd,
Through Night's black bosom should not peep again:
So should I have copartners in my pain;

And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,b
As palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage.

"Where now I have no one to blush with me,
To cross their arms, and hang their heads with mine,
To mask their brows, and hide their infamy;
But I alone alone must sit and pine,

Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine,

Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans,
Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans.

"O Night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke,
Let not the jealous Day behold that face
Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak

misty vapours-1 The first quarto reads musty; but the subsequent copies rightly have "misty." In support of the latter Malone adduces the following passages from preceding stanzas in this poem,

and,

"Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,"

misty night

Covers the shame that follows such delight;"

to which Mr. Dyce has added a line still more to the purpose from "Venus and Adonis,”"Like misty vapours when they blot the sky."

And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,-] This sentiment occurs in "King Lear," Act III. Sc. 6,

"But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship;"

and in "Romeo and Juliet," Act III. Sc. 2,

66 if sour woe delight in fellowship."

Immodestly lies martyr'd with disgrace!
Keep still possession of thy gloomy place,
That all the faults which in thy reign are made
May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade!

"Make me not object to the tell-tale Day!
The light will show, charácter'd-in my brow,
The story of sweet chastity's decay,
The impious breach of holy wedlock vow:
Yea, the illiterate, that know not how

To 'cipher what is writ in learned books,
Will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks.

"The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story,
And fright her crying babe with Tarquin's name;
The orator, to deck his oratory,

Will couple my reproach to Tarquin's shame;
Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame,
Will tie the hearers to attend each line,
How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.

"Let my good name, that senseless reputation,
For Collatine's dear love be kept unspotted:
If that be made a theme for disputation,
The branches of another root are rotted,
And undeserv'd reproach to him allotted
That is as clear from this attaint of mine,
As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.

"O unseen shame! invisible disgrace!
O unfelt sore! crest-wounding, private scar!
Reproach is stamp'd in Collatinus' face,
And Tarquin's eye may read the mot afar,
How he in peace is wounded, not in war.

Alas, how many bear such shameful blows,

Which not themselves, but he that gives them knows!

"If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me,

From me by strong assault it is bereft.
My honey lost, and I, a drone-like bee,
Have no perfection of my summer left,
But robb'd and ransack'd by injurious theft:

In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept,
And suck'd the honey which thy chaste bee kept.

Will quote-] Will scan or note. As in "Hamlet," Act II. Sc. 1,

1

Sc. 2,

"I am sorry that with better heed and judgment,

I had not quoted him."

the mot-] The "mot" is the motto, or word. Thus in "Pericles," Act II

"The word, Quod me alit, me extinguit."

"Yet am I guilty of thy honour's wrack.-
Yet for thy honour did I entertain him;a
Coming from thee, I could not put him back,
For it had been dishonour to disdain him:
Besides, of weariness he did complain him,
And talk'd of virtue ;-O, unlook'd-for evil,
When virtue is profan'd in such a devil!

"Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?
Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?
Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud?
Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?
Or kings be breakers of their own behests?
But no perfection is so absolute,
That some impurity doth not pollute.

"The aged man that coffers-up his gold

Is plagu'd with cramps, and gouts and painful fits;
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,
But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless barns the harvest of his wits;
Having no other pleasure of his gain
But torment that it cannot cure his pain.

"So then he hath it, when he cannot use it,
And leaves it to be master'd by his young,

Who in their pride do presently abuse it:
Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.

The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours,
Even in the moment that we call them ours.

"Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring;b
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;
The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing;
What virtue breeds iniquity devours:

We have no good that we can say is ours,
But ill-annexed Opportunity

Or kills his life or else his quality.

"O Opportunity, thy guilt is great!

'Tis thou that execut'st the traitor's treason;
Thou sett'st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
Whoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season;
'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason;

a Yet am I guilty of thy honour's wrack, &c.] Malone, in opposition to the old copies, reads, "Yet am I guiltless," &c.; but Boswell shows very clearly that change was uncalled for: "She is reproaching herself, at first, for having received Tarquin's visit; but instantly defends herself by saying that she did it out of respect to her husband,"

b Unruly blasts wit on the tender spring ;] See note (*), p. 371.

b

And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.

"Thou mak'st the vestal violate her oath ;
Thou blow'st the fire when temperance is thaw'd;
Thou smother'st honesty, thou murder'st troth;
Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd!
Thou plantest scandal, and displacest laud:
Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,
Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!

"Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,
Thy private feasting to a public fast,
Thy smoothing titles to a raggeda name;
Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste:
Thy violent vanities can never last.

How comes it, then, vile Opportunity,
Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?

"When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend,
And bring him where his suit may be obtain'd?
When wilt thou sortb an hour great strifes to end?
Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain'd?
Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd?

The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;
But they ne'er meet with Opportunity.

"The patient dies while the physician sleeps;
The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps;
Advice is sporting while infection breeds;
Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds:

Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages,
Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.

"When Truth and Virtue have to do with thee
A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid:
They buy thy help; but Sin ne'er gives a fee,
He gratis comes; and thou art well appaide
As well to hear as grant what he hath said.

My Collatine would else have come to me
When Tarquin did, but he was stay'd by thee.

"Guilty thou art of murder and of theft;
Guilty of perjury and subornation;

a ragged name;] A beggared name.

sort an hour-] Pick out, or choose, or fit an hour: so in "Henry VI." Part I. Act II. Sc. 3,

"I'll sort some other time to visit you;"

and in "Henry VI." Part III. Act V. Sc. 6,

Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift;
Guilty of incest, that abomination:
An accessary by thine inclination

To all sins past, and all that are to come,
From the creation to the general doom.

Mis-shapen Time, copesmate of ugly Night,
Swift-subtle post, carrier of grisly care,

Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,

Base watch of woes, sin's pack-horse, virtue's snare;
Thou nursest all, and murder'st all that are:
O, hear me, then, injurious-shifting Time!
Be guilty of my death, since of my crime.

"Why hath thy servant, Opportunity,
Betray'd the hours thou gav'st me to repose?
Cancell'd my fortunes, and enchained me
To endless date of never-ending woes?
Time's office is to fine the hate of foes;
To eat up errors by opinion bred,
Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed.

"Time's glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falschood, and bring truth to light,
To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn, and sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger till he render right,

To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,

And smear with dust their glittering-golden towers;

"To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,

To blot old books and alter their contents,

To pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings,
To dry the old oak's sap, and cherish springs,
To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,
And turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel;

"To show the beldame daughters of her daughter,
To make the child a man, the man a child,
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,
To tame the unicorn and lion wild,

To mock the subtle in themselves beguil'd;

To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,
And waste huge stones with little water-drops.

to fine the hate of foes;] To fine is to end. So in "Much Ado about Nothing." Act I. Sc. 1.-"And the fine is (for the which I may go the finer), I will live and die a bachelor:" and in "All's Well that Ends Well," Act IV. Sc. 4,

To wrong the wronger-] Farmer proposed,-" To wring the wronger," &c.