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'Have done,' quoth he: 'my uncontrolled tide

Turns not, but swells the higher by this let.

Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide,

And with the wind in greater fury fret:

The petty streams that pay a daily debt

To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls' haste,

Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.'

'Thou art,' quoth she, 'a sea, a sovereign king;

And, lo, there falls into thy boundless flood

Black lust, dishonour, shame, misgoverning,

Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood.

If all these petty ills shall change thy good,

Thy sea within a puddle's womb is hears'd,

And not the puddle in thy sea dispers'd.

'So shall these slaves be king, and thou their slave;

Thou nobly base, they basely dignified;

Thou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave;

Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride:

The lesser thing should not the greater hide;

The cedar stoops not to the base shrub's foot,

But low shrubs whither at the cedar's root.

'So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state'—

'No more,' quoth he; 'by heaven, I will not hear thee:

Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate,

Instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee;

That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee

Unto the base bed of some rascal groom,

To be thy partner in this shameful doom.'

This said, he sets his foot upon the light,

For light and lust are deadly enemies;

Shame folded up in blind concealing night,

When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.

The wolf hath seiz'd his prey, the poor lamb cries;

Till with her own white fleece her voice controll'd

Entombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold:

For with the nightly linen that she wears

He pens her piteous clamours in her head;

Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears

That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed.

O, that prone lust should stain so pure a bed!

The spots whereof could weeping purify,

Her tears should drop on them perpetually.

But she hath lost a dearer thing than life,

And he hath won what he would lose again.

This forced league doth force a further strife;

This momentary joy breeds months of pain,

This hot desire converts to cold disdain:

Pure Chastity is rifled of her store,

And Lust, the thief, far poorer than before.

Look, as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk,

Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight,

Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk

The prey wherein by nature they delight;

So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night:

His taste delicious, in digestion souring,

Devours his will, that liv'd by foul devouring.

O deeper sin than bottomless conceit

Can comprehend in still imagination!

Drunken desire must vomit his receipt,

Ere he can see his own abomination.

While lust is in his pride no exclamation

Can curb his heat, or rein his rash desire,

Till, like a jade, self-will himself doth tire.

And then with lank and lean discolour'd cheek,

With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace,

Feeble desire, all recreant, poor, and meek,

Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case:

The flesh being proud, desire doth fight with Grace,

For there it revels; and when that decays,

The guilty rebel for remission prays.

So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome,

Who this accomplishment so hotly chas'd;

For now against himself he sounds this doom,

That through the length of times he stands disgrac'd:

Besides, his soul's fair temple is defac'd;

To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,

To ask the spotted princess how she fares.

She says, her subjects with foul insurrection

Have batter'd down her consecrated wall,

And by their mortal fault brought in subjection

Her immortality, and made her thrall

To living death, and pain perpetual;

Which in her prescience she controlled still,

But her foresight could not forestall their will.

Even in this thought through the dark night he stealeth,

A captive victor that hath lost in gain;

Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth,

The scar that will, despite of cure, remain;

Leaving his spoil perplex'd in greater pain.

She hears the load of lust he left behind,

And he