Page:Shakespeare Collection of Poems.djvu/92

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The Rape of Lucrece.
For markes descried in mens nativity,
Are Natures faults, not their owne infamy.

Here with a Cockatrice dead killing eye,
He rowseth up himself, and makes a pause,
While she the picture of pure piety,
Like a white Hinde under the gripes sharp claws,
Pleads in a wilderness where are no lawes,
To the rough beast, that knowes no gentle right,
Nor ought obeyes but his foul appetite.

But when a black-fac'd cloud the world doth threat,
In his dim mist the aspiring mountaine hiding,
From earths dark womb some gentle gust doth get,
Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding,
Hindring their present fall by this dividing.
So his unhallowed haste her words delaies,
And moody Pluto winkes while Orpheus plays.

Yet foule night waking Cat he doth but dally,
While in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth;
Her sad behaviour feeds his vulture folly;
A swallowing gulfe that even in plenty wanteth:
His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth
No penetrable entrance to her plaining,
Tears harden lust, tho marble wears with raining.

Her pitty pleading eyes are sadly fixed
In the remorselesse wrinkles of his face:
Her modest eloquence with sighs is mixed,

Which