CXIX. What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, What wretched errors hath my heart committed, How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, In the distraction of this madding fever! O benefit of ill! now I find true That better is by evil ftill made better; And ruin'd love, when it is built anew, Grows fairer than at first, more ftrong, far greater. So I return rebuked to my content, And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent. CXX. That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that forrow which I then did feel To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime. CXXI. 'Tis better to be vile than vile efteemed, Or on my frailties why are frailer fpies, Which in their wills count bad what I think good? No, I am that I am, and they that level At my abuses reckon up their own: I may be ftraight, though they themselves be bevel; By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown; Unless this general evil they maintain, All men are bad and in their badness reign. CXXII. Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart Till each to razed oblivion yield his part CXXIII. No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change: And rather make them born to our defire Than think that we before have heard them told. Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present nor the past, |