FullReads

‘Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,
Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,
But, when his glutton eye so full hath fed,
His other agents aim at like delight? . . . . . 400
Who is so faint, that dare not bo so bold
To touch the fire, the weather being cold?

‘Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy;
And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee, . . . 404
To take advantage on presented joy
Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.
O learn to love, the lesson is but plain,
And once made perfect, never lost again. . . . 408

‘I know not love,’ quoth he, ‘nor will not know it,
Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it;
‘Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it;
My love to love is love but to disgrace it; . . . 412
For I have heard it is a life in death,
That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.

‘Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish’d?
Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth? . . 416
If springing things be any jot diminish’d,
They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth;
The colt that’s back’d and burden’d being young
Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong. . . .420

‘You hurt my hand with wringing Iet us part,
And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat:
Remove your siege from my unyielding heart;
To love’s alarms it will not ope the gate: . . . 424
Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery;
For where a heart is hard they make no battery.’

‘What! canst thou talk?’ quoth she, ‘hast thou a tongue?
O! would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing; . . 428
Thy mermaid’s voice hath done me double wrong;
I had my load before, now press’d with bearing:
Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh-sounding,
Ear’s deep-sweet music, and heart’s deep-sore wounding.

‘Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love . . . 433
That inward beauty and invisible;
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move
Each part in me that were but sensible: . . . . 436
Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor se
e,
Yet should I be in love by touching thee.

‘Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me,
And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch, . . 440
And nothing but the very smell were left me,
Yet would my love to thee be still as much;
For from the stillitory of thy face excelling
Comes breath perfum’d that breedeth love by smelling.

‘But O! what banquet wert thou to the taste, . . .445
Being nurse and feeder of the other four;
Would they not wish the feast might ever last,
And bid Suspicion double-lock the door,
Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,
Should, by his stealing in, disturb the feast?’ . 448

Once more the ruby-colour’d portal open’d,
Which to his speech did honey passage yield, . . .452
Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken’d
Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds. . .456

This ill presage advisedly she marketh:
Even as the wind is hush’d before it raineth,
Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,
Or as the berry breaks before it staineth, . . . 460
Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,
His meaning struck her ere his words begun.