| |
| TO make the doubt clear, that no woman’s true, | |
| Was it my fate to prove it strong in you? | |
| Thought I, but one had breathèd purest air; | |
| And must she needs be false, because she’s fair? | |
| Is it your beauty’s mark, or of your youth, | 5 |
| Or your perfection, not to study truth? | |
| Or think you heaven is deaf, or hath no eyes, | |
| Or those it hath smile at your perjuries? | |
| Are vows so cheap with women, or the matter | |
| Whereof they’re made, that they are writ in water, | 10 |
| And blown away with wind? Or doth their breath, | |
| Both hot and cold, at once make life and death? | |
| Who could have thought so many accents sweet | |
| Form’d into words, so many sighs should meet | |
| As from our hearts, so many oaths, and tears | 15 |
| Sprinkled among, all sweeten’d by our fears, | |
| And the divine impression of stolen kisses, | |
| That seal’d the rest, should now prove empty blisses? | |
| Did you draw bonds to forfeit? sign to break? | |
| Or must we read you quite from what you speak, | 20 |
| And find the truth out the wrong way? or must | |
| He first desire you false, would wish you just? | |
| O! I profane! though most of women be | |
| This kind of beast, my thoughts shall except thee, | |
| My dearest love; though froward jealousy | 25 |
| With circumstance might urge thy inconstancy, | |
| Sooner I’ll think the sun will cease to cheer | |
| The teeming earth, and that forget to bear; | |
| Sooner that rivers will run back, or Thames | |
| With ribs of ice in June will bind his streams; | 30 |
| Or nature, by whose strength the world endures, | |
| Would change her course, before you alter yours. | |
| But O! that treacherous breast, to whom weak you | |
| Did drift 1 our counsels, and we both may rue, | |
| Having his falsehood found too late; ’twas he | 35 |
| That made me cast you guilty, and you me; | |
| Whilst he, black wretch, betray’d each simple word | |
| We spake, unto the cunning of a third. | |
| Cursed may he be, that so our love hath slain, | |
| And wander on the earth, wretched as Cain, | 40 |
| Wretched as he, and not deserve least pity. | |
| In plaguing him, let misery be witty; | |
| Let all eyes shun him, and he shun each eye, | |
| Till he be noisome as his infamy; | |
| May he without remorse deny God thrice, | 45 |
| And not be trusted more on his soul’s price; | |
| And, after all self-torment, when he dies, | |
| May wolves tear out his heart, vultures his eyes, | |
| Swine eat his bowels, and his falser tongue | |
| That utter’d all, be to some raven flung; | 50 |
| And let his carrion corse be a longer feast | |
| To the king’s dogs, than any other beast. | |
| Now have I 2 cursed, let us our love revive; | |
| In me the flame was never more alive. | |
| I could begin again to court and praise, | 55 |
| And in that pleasure lengthen the short days | |
| Of my life’s lease; like painters that do take | |
| Delight, not in made work, but whiles they make. | |
| I could renew those times, when first I saw | |
| Love in your eyes, that gave my tongue the law | 60 |
| To like what you liked; and at masks and plays | |
| Commend the self-same actors, the same ways; | |
| Ask how you did, and often with intent | |
| Of being officious, be impertinent; | |
| All which were such soft pastimes, as in these | 65 |
| Love was as subtly catch’d as a disease. | |
| But being got, it is a treasure sweet, | |
| Which to defend is harder than to get; | |
| And ought not be profaned, on either part, | |
| For though ’tis got by chance, ’tis kept by art. | 70 |
