6

6

150

1491

6

1498

“Why should the private pleasure of some one *It cannot be,' quoth she, “that so much guile'Become the public plague of many moe? She would have said .can lurk in such a look'; Let sin, alone committed, light alone 1480 But Tarquin's shape came in her mind the while, Upon his head that hath transgressed so ; And from her tongue 'can lurk' from 'cannot' Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe :

took : For one's offence why should so many fall, It cannot be,' she in that sense forsook, To plague a private sin in general ?

And turn'd it thus, 'It cannot be, I find,

But such a face should bear a wicked mind: *Lo! here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies, Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds, For even as subtle Sinon here is painted, Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies, So sober-sad, so weary, and so mild, And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds, As if with grief or travail he had fainted, And one man's lust these many lives confounds: To me came Tarquin armed ; so beguild

Had doting Priam check'd his son's desire, With outward honesty, but yet defil'd Troy had been bright with fame and not with With inward vice : as Priam him did cherish, fire.'

So did I Tarquin; so my Troy did perish. Here feelingly she weeps Troy's painted woes ;

'Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes, For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell,

To see those borrow'd tears that Sinon sheds ! Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes; Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise ! 1:59 Then little strength rings out the doleful knell : For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds : So Lucrece, set a-work, sad tales doth tell

His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds; To pencill'd pensiveness and colour'd sorrow;

Those round clear pearls of his, that move thy She lends them words, and she their looks

pity, doth borrow.

Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city. She throws her eyes about the painting round, And whom she finds forlorn she doth lament:

‘Such devils steal effects from lightless hell; At last she sees a wretched image bound,

For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold, That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent; These contraries such unity do hold,

And in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell; His face, though full of cares, yet show'd con

Only to flatter fools and make them bold:

So Priam's trust false Sinon's tears doth flatter, Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he

That he finds means to burn his Troy with goes,

water.' So mild, that Patience seem'd to scorn his

Here, all enrag'd, such passion her assails, In him the painter labour'd with his skill That patience is quite beaten from her breast. To hide deceit, and give the harmless show

She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails, An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,

Comparing him to that unhappy guest A brow unbent that seem'd to welcome woe;

Whose deed hath made herself herself detest: Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so 1510

At last she smilingly with this gives o'er ; That blushing red no guilty instance gave, * Fool! fool!' quoth she, ‘his wounds will Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.

not be sore. But, like a constant and confirmed devil, Thus ebbs and Aows the current of her sorrow, He entertain'd a show so seeming-just,

And time doth weary time with her complaining, And therein so ensconc'd his secret evil, She looks for night, and then she longs for That jealousy itself could not mistrust False-keeping craft and perjury should thrust And both she thinks too long with herremainicg:

Into so bright a day such black-fac'd storms, Short time seems long in sorrow's sharp susOr blot with hell-born sin such saint-like taining : forms.

Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps;

And they that watch see time how slow it The well-skill'd workman this mild image drew creeps. For perjur'd Sinon, whose enchanting story 1521 The credulous old Priam after slew;

Which all this time bath overslipp'd her thought, Whose words like wildfire burnt the shining That she with painted images hath spent ; glory

Being from the feeling of her own grief brougbt Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry, By deep surmise of others' detriment;

And little stars shot from their fixed places, Losing her woes in shows of discontent. When their glass fell wherein they view'd It easeth some, though none it ever curd, their faces.

To think their dolour others have endur'd.

tent ;

1561

woes.

morrow,

This picture she advisedly perus’d,

But now the mindful messenger, come back,
And chid the painter for his wondrous skill, Brings home his lord and other company,
Saying, some shape in Sinon's was abus'd; Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black;
So fair a form lodg'd not a mind so ill : 1530 | And round about her tear-distained eye
And still on him she gaz'd, and gazing still, Blue circles stream'd, like rainbows in the sky:

Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied, These water-galls in her dim element
That she concludes the picture was belied. Foretell new storms to those already spent.

a

SONNETS.

TO THE ONLIE. BEGETTER. OF.

THESE. INSUING. SONNETS. MR. W. H. ALL. HAPPINESSE. AND. THAT ETERNITIE.

PROMISED.

BY.

OUR EVER-LIVING POET.

WISHETH.

THE WELL-WISHING.

ADVENTURER. IN.

SETTING.

FORTH.

·