MINOR POEMS

A LOVER'S COMPLAINT.*

FROM off a hill whose concave womb re-worded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,1

My spirits t' attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale e;
Ere long espied a fickle maid2 full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.3

Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the Sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcass of a beauty spent and done : 4
Time had not scythèd all that youth begun,
Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,
Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sere 5 age.

"A LOVER'S COMPLAINT, by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE," was first printed in 1609, and at the end of the volume containing the Sonnets. There is no doubt of its being the Poet's work; but on what occasion or for what purpose it was written, is not known. Some parts of it are very fine, and all of it is well worth having.

1 "A sistering vale" is an adjoining or neighbouring vale.

2 Meaning, probably, that the maid was in a fitful or uneasy state.

8 So in King Lear, iii. 1: “Strives in his little world of man to outscorn the to-and-fro conflicting wind and rain."

4 Done, here, is destroyed or consumed; as we say done for. So in Venus and Adonis:

Are on the sudden wasted, thaw'd, and done,
As mountain snow melts with the midday Sun.

Sere is withered, dry. See vol. xvii. page 110, note 8.

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,6
Laundering the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.

Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride,9
As they did battery to the spheres intend;
Sometimes diverted their poor balls are tied
To th' orbed earth; sometimes they do extend
Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
To every place at once, and, nowhere fix'd,
The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.

Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,
Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride; 10
For some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved hat,11
Hanging her pale and pinèd cheek beside;
Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,

And, true to bondage, would not break from thence,
Though slackly braided in loose negligence.

A thousand favours from a maund 12 she drew

Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,

Which one by one she in a river threw,

Upon whose weeping margent she was set;

6 Napkin was often used for handkerchief.— Conceited characters is ingenious or fanciful figures.

7 Laundering is washing or laving.

8 Pelleted is formed in little balls. See vol. xvi. page 104, note 19.

9 Alluding to a piece of ordnance. Levell'd is aimed. Often so.

10 The construction is, "a hand of careless pride."

11 Called sheaved because made from sheaves of straw.

12 Maund is still used for a basket in the North of England.