"Now all these hearts that do on mine depend, Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine; And supplicant their sighs to you extend,

To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine,
Lending soft audience to my sweet design,
And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath,
That shall prefer and undertake my troth.'

This said, his watery eyes he did dismount, Whose sights till then were levell'd on my face: Each cheek, a river running from a fount, With brinish current downward flow'd apace. O, how the channel to the stream gave grace! Who, glazed with crystal, gate 1 the glowing roses That flame through water which their hue encloses.

O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear!
But with the inundation of the eyes,
What rocky heart to water will not wear?
What breast so cold, that is not warmed here?
O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,

Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath!

For, lo! his passion, but an art of craft,

Even there resolved my reason into tears:
There my white stole of chastity I daff'd;

2

I Got.

2 Put off.

XV.

R

SHAK.

Shook off my sober guards, and civil1 fears;
Appear to him, as he to me appears.

All melting, though our drops this difference

bore ;

His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.

In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives;
Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,
Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
In either's aptness, as it best deceives,
To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,
Or to turn white, and swoon at tragic shows;

That not a heart, which in his level came, Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim, Showing fair nature is both kind and tame ; And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim. Against the thing he sought he would exclaim: When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury,3 He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity.

'Thus, merely with the garment of a Grace,
The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd,
That the unexperienced gave the tempter place,
Which, like a cherubin, above them hover'd.
Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?

1 Grave, decorous.
2 Lewdness.

2 Insidious purposes.

Ah me: I fell; and yet do question make
What I should do again for such a sake.

O, that infected moisture of his eye;

O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd;
O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly;
O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd;
O, all that borrow'd motion, seeming owed; 1.
Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd,
And new pervert a reconciled maid!'

11. e. that seemed real and his own.

THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM.