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His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,

(Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall!)

May feel her heart, poor citizen, distress'd,

Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall,

Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.

This moves in him more rage, and lesser pity,

To make the breach, and enter this sweet city.

First, like a trumpet, doth his tongue begin

To sound a parley to his heartless foe,

Who o'er the white sheet peers her whiter chin,

The reason of this rash alarm to know,

Which he by dumb demeanour seeks to show;

But she with vehement prayers urgeth still

Under what colour he commits this ill.

Thus he replies: 'The colour in thy face,

(That even for anger makes the lily pale,

And the red rose blush at her own disgrace)

Shall plead for me and tell my loving tale:

Under that colour am I come to scale

Thy never-conquer'd fort: the fault is thine,

For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine.

'Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide:

Thy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night,

Where thou with patience must my will abide,

My will that marks thee for my earth's delight,

Which I to conquer sought with all my might;

But as reproof and reason beat it dead,

By thy bright beauty was it newly bred.

'I see what crosses my attempt will bring;

I know what thorns the growing rose defends;

I think the honey guarded with a sting;

All this, beforehand, counsel comprehends:

But will is deaf, and hears no heedful friends;

Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty,

And dotes on what he looks, 'gainst law or duty.

'I have debated, even in my soul,

What wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall breed;

But nothing can Affection's course control,

Or stop the headlong fury of his speed.

I know repentant tears ensue the deed,

Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity;

Yet strike I to embrace mine infamy.'

This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,

Which, like a falcon towering in the skies,

Coucheth the fowl below with his wings' shade,

Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies:

So under his insulting falchion lies

Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells

With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon's bells.

'Lucrece,' quoth he, 'this night I must enjoy thee:

If thou deny, then force must work my way,

For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee;

That done, some worthless slave of thine I'll slay.

To kill thine honour with thy life's decay;

And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him,

Swearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him.

'So thy surviving husband shall remain

The scornful mark of every open eye;

Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain,

Thy issue blurr'd with nameless bastardy:

And thou, the author of their obloquy,

Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rhymes,

And sung by children in succeeding times.

'But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend:

The fault unknown is as a thought unacted;

A little harm, done to a great good end,

For lawful policy remains enacted.

The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted

In a pure compound; being so applied,

His venom in effect is purified.

'Then, for thy husband and thy children's sake,

Tender my suit: bequeath not to their lot

The shame that from them no device can take,

The blemish that will never be forgot;

Worse than a slavish wipe, or birth-hour's blot:

For marks descried in men's nativity

Are nature's faults, not their own infamy.'

Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye

He rouseth up himself and makes a pause;

While she, the picture of pure piety,

Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws,

Pleads in a wilderness where are no laws,

To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,

Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.

But when a black-fac'd cloud the world doth threat,

In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding,

From earth's dark womb some gentle gust doth get,

Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding,

Hindering their present fall by this dividing;

So his unhallow'd haste her words delays,

And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.

Yet, foul