All vows and consecrations giving place.
O most potential love! vow, bond, nor space,
In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine;
For thou art all, and all things else are thine.
"When thou impressest, what are precepts worth
Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,
How coldly those impediments stand forth.
Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!
Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense,
'gainst shame;
And sweetens,
* in the suffering pangs it bears,
The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.
"Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,
Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine;
And supplicant their sighs to you extend,
To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine,
Lending soft audience to my sweet design,
And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath,
That shall prefer and undertake my troth.'
'This said, his watery eyes he did dismount,
Whose sights till then were levell'd on my face:
Each cheek, a river running from a fount,
With brinish current downward flow'd apace.
O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!
Who, glazed with crystal, gate † the glowing roses
That flamed through water which their hue encloses.
*'The meaning may be-The warfare that love carries on against rule, sense, and shame, produces to the parties engaged a peaceful enjoyment; and sweetens, etc.'- Malone. † Got.
'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear!
But with the inundation of the eyes,
What rocky heart to water will not wear?
What breast so cold, that is not warmed here?
O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,
Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath!
'For, lo! his passion, but an art of craft,
Even there resolved my reason into tears:
There my white stole of chastity I daff'd ; *
Shook off my sober guards, and civil † fears;
Appear to him, as he to me appears.
All melting, though our drops this difference bore ;--
His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.
In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautcis, ‡ all strange forms receives;
Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,
Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
In either's aptness, as it best deceives,
To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,
Or to turn white, and swoon at tragic shows;
'That not a heart, which in his level came,
Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,
Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;
And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim.
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim:
When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury, ?
He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity.
'Thus, merely with the garment of a Grace,
The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd,
That the unexperienced gave the tempter place,
Which, like a cherubin, above them hover'd.
Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?
Ah me! I fell; and yet do question make
What I should do again for such a sake.
'O, that infected moisture of his eye;
O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd;
O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly;
O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd;
O, all that borrow'd motion, seeming owed ;-
Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd,
And new pervert a reconciled maid! '
i. e. that seemed real and his own.
[The Passionate Pilgrim was first published by William Jaggard in small 8vo. in 1599, with our author's name, in which are inserted a sonnet and ode, which had appeared during the preceding year in a collection of poems written by Richard Barnefield. In the year 1612 the same publisher proceeded still farther; for be then added to the former miscellany a celebrated madrigal of Marlowe, beginning with the words, 'Come, live with me, and be my love,' together with several pieces written by Thomas Heywood, who loudly complained of Jaggard's fraud: notwithstanding which remonstrance, these productions still continued to be inserted in all subsequent editions of our author's poems till the time of Malone; nor was the fallacy detected till the year 1766, when it was pointed out by Dr. Farmer, in his very ingenious Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare. The order in which these little pieces stand in the old copy is not followed by Mr. Malone, who has classed all those which relate to Adonis together.]
SWEET Cytherea, sitting by a brook,
young Adonis, lovely, fresh and green, Did court the lad with many a lovely look :
Such looks as none could look but beauty's queen.
She told him stories to delight his ear;
She show'd him favors to allure his eye;
To win his heart, she touched him here and there :
Touches so soft still conquer chastity.
But whether unripe years did want conceit,
Or he refused to take her figured proffer;-
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