Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feather'd creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift despatch
In pursuit of the thing fhe would have stay;
Whilft her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent:
So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilft I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind :
So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,
If thou turn back and my loud crying still.
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two fpirits do fuggeft me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
To win me foon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my fide,
And would corrupt my faint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell ;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this fhall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, bad angel fire my good one out.
Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breathed forth the found that faid 'I hate,'
To me that languish'd for her fake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that
tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom;
And taught it thus anew to greet;
'I hate' fhe alter'd with an end,
That follow'd it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who, like a fiend,
From heaven to hell is flown away;
'I hate' from hate away fhe threw,
And faved my life, saying-'Not you.'
Poor foul, the centre of my finful earth,
[Preff'd by] these rebel powers that thee array,
Why doft thou pine within and fuffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls fo coftly gay?
Why fo large cost, having so short a lease,
Doft thou upon thy fading manfion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, foul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in felling hours of drofs;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So fhalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain fickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Defire is death, which phyfic did except.
Paft cure am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unreft;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth, vainly expreff❜d;
For I have fworn thee fair, and thought thee
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. [bright,
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