| |
| WITH 1 what strange formes and shadowes ominous | |
| Did my last sleepe my griev’d soul intertaine! | |
| I dreamt, yet O, dreames are but frivolous; | |
| And yet I’le tell it, and God graunte in vaine. | |
| Me thought a mighty hippopotamus, | 5 |
| From Nilus floting, thrusts into the maine, | |
| Upon whose back a wanton mermaid sate, | |
| As if she rul’d his course and steer’d his fate; | |
| |
| With whom t’ incounter forth another makes, | |
| Alike in kind, of strength and poure as good, | 10 |
| At whose ingrappling Neptune’s mantle takes | |
| A purple colour, dyde with streames of bloud; | |
| Whereat this looker-on, amaz’d, forsakes | |
| Her champion there, who yet the better stood; | |
| But se’ing her gone, straight after her he hies, | 15 |
| As if his hart and strength laye in her eies. | |
| |
| On followes wrath, upon disgrace and feare, | |
| Whereof th’ event forsooke me with the night; | |
| But my wak’d cares gave me these shadowes were | |
| Drawne but from darknes to instruct the light; | 20 |
| These secret figures Nature’s message beare | |
| Of comming woes, were they deciphered right; | |
| But if as cloudes of sleepe thou shalt them take, | |
| Yet credit wrath and spight, that are awake. | |
| |
| Prevent great spirit the tempest that begin, | 25 |
| If lust and thy ambition have left way | |
| But to looke out, and have not shut all in, | |
| To stop thy iudgment from a true survay | |
| Of thy estate; and let thy harte within | |
| Consider in what danger thou dost lay | 30 |
| Thy life and mine, to leave the good thou hast, | |
| To follow hopes with shadowes ou’rcast. | |
| |
| Come, come away from wrong, from craft, from toile; | |
| Possesse thine owne with right, with truth, with peace; | |
| Breake from these snares, thy iudgment unbeguile, | 35 |
| Free thine owne torment, and my griefe release. | |
| But whither am I carried all this while? | |
| Beyond my scope, and know not when to cease: | |
| Words still with my increasing sorrowes grow; | |
| I know t’ have said too much, but not ynow. | 40 |
| |
| Wherefore no more, but onely I commend | |
| To thee the hart that’s thine, and so I end. | |
