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But if with heavy cheer they show their inward grief,

He waileth most his wretchedness that is of wretches chief.

When he doth hear abroad the praise of ladies blown,

Within his thought he scorneth them, and doth prefer his own.

When pleasant songs he hears, while others do rejoice,

The melody of music doth stir up his mourning voice.

But if in secret place he walk somewhere alone,

The place itself and secretness redoubleth all his moan.

Then speaks he to the beasts, to feathered fowls and trees,

Unto the earth, the clouds, and to whatso beside he sees.

To them he shew'th his smart, as though they reason had.

Each thing may cause his heaviness, but nought may make him glad.

And, weary of the day, again he calleth night,

The sun he curseth, and the hour when first his eyes saw light.

And as the night and day their course do interchange,

So doth our Romeus' nightly cares for cares of day exchange.

In absence of her knight the lady no way could

Keep truce between her griefs and her, though ne'er so fain she would;

And though with greater pain she cloakéd sorrow's smart,

Yet did her paléd face disclose the passions of her heart.

Her sighing every hour, her weeping everywhere,

Her reckless heed of meat, of sleep, and wearing of her gear,

The careful mother marks; then of her health afraid,

Because the griefs increaséd still, thus to her child she said:

"Dear daughter, if you should long languish in this sort,

I stand in doubt that oversoon your sorrows will make short

Your loving father's life and mine, that love you more

Than our own proper breath and life. Bridle henceforth therefore

Your grief and pain, yourself on joy your thought to set,

For time it is that now you should our Tybalt's death forget.

Of whom since God hath claimed the life that was but lent,

He is in bliss, ne is there cause why you should thus lament.

You can not call him back with tears and shriekings shrill:

It is a fault thus still to grudge at God's appointed will."

The seely soul had now no longer power to feign,

No longer could she hide her harm, but answered thus again,

With heavy broken sighs, with visage pale and dead:

"Madam, the last of Tybalt's tears a great while since I shed.

Whose spring hath been ere this so laded out by me,

That empty quite and moistureless I guess it now to be.

So that my painéd heart by conduits of the eyne

No more henceforth, as wont it was, shall gush forth dropping brine."

The woeful mother knew not what her daughter meant,

And loth to vex her child by words, her peace she warely hent.

But when from hour to hour, from morrow to the morrow,

Still more and more she saw increased her daughter's wonted sorrow,

All means she sought of her and household folk to know

The certain root whereon her grief and bootless moan doth grow.

But lo, she hath in vain her time and labour lore,

Wherefore without all measure is her heart tormented sore.

And sith herself could not find out the cause of care,

She thought it good to tell the sire how ill his child did fare.

And when she saw her time, thus to her fere she said:

"Sir, if you mark our daughter well, the countenance of the maid,

And how she fareth since that Tybalt unto death,

Before his time, forced by his foe, did yield his living breath,

Her face shall seem so changed, her doings eke so strange,

That you will greatly wonder at so great and sudden change.

Not only she forbears her meat, her drink, and sleep,

But now she tendeth nothing else but to lament and weep.

No greater joy hath she, nothing contents her heart

So much as in the chamber close to shut herself apart;

Where she doth so torment her poor afflicted mind,

That much in danger stands her life, except some help we find.

But, out, alas, I see not how it may be found,

Unless that first we might find whence her sorrows thus abound.

For though with busy care I have employed my wit,

And used all the ways I knew to learn the truth of it,

Neither extremity ne gentle means could boot;

She hideth close within her breast her secret sorrow's