Classic Poem

But if more pitty in their sauage hearts,
There be nor was in thy remorslesse mind,
Thinke that the same nought els to thee imparts,
But as thou nature, so they'l passe their kind,
Which being to rapine and to bloud inclin'd,
Yet least it were a benefite to thee,
From tortring thoughts deny thy soule to free.

And sometimes while the Turtle moanes her make,
With many a heauie, shrill, and piteous crie,
Leaning her soft brest to a withered stake,
Still crauing death, (poore bird) but cannot die:
No other beast neere-hand, nor no fowle nye,
Who hauing lost her loue, doth hate repaire,
Be thou her Eccho to resound her care.

Sing thou the treble to her mournfull songs,
Reply her sad notes with thy dying grones,
While she bewailes her griefes, bewaile thy wrongs,
And as she sits on prickes, sit thou on stones:
This sympathie shall best become your moanes;
This harmony of neuer-dying playnts,
Best fits the humors of such male-contents.

This Purgatorie-penance to endure,
With patience thy selfe till death content,
Into those desarts where thou must immure
Thy errors euerlasting penitent,
Ne're finding one with whom thou maist frequent;
Vnlesse thou hap vpon some homely cell,
Where Pilgrims haunt and hoary Hermits dwel.

Liue then this death, or rather dye this life,
Let it be death to liue, and life to die:
Let thy owne soule be with thy soule at strife:
Let thy owne heart, thy hearts own bourreau be,
Let all the euils on earth triumph in thee,
Let still thy selfe be of these euils the worst,
In actions all, in life, in death accurst.

Thus al the night he did his plaints renew,
Mourning his sweet loues wofull miserie:
And now the Morning lent a loath'd adew,
Till amorous Titan in a scarlet die,
And the swift-winged Consort mounting high,
Tun'd out their sweetest warbles in the skies,
Till Phaebus wakened with their restlesse cries.

Who peece and peece his golden head vp-heaues
Aboue th' vnconstant watry liquid Maine,
There weeping Memnons losse, Aurora leaues,
Whose teares for pittre he quaffes vp againe,
Which all the night bedewed had each plaine:
The tender grasse seem'd by their withered crops,
To waile the wanting of these holesome drops.

And now the Light (expelling darknesse) shin'd
Through Sophonisba's chamber where she lay,
Who all this night was most extreamly pin'd,
With vgly visions did her mind affray,
That she can nought discerne: if it be day,
She thinkes she dreames that which she waking sees,
Scarse if she will giue credit to her eyes.

But whether that accustomated time,
Or then the loathing of a restlesse rest,
Or of imagination of some crime,
The waking Sent'nell of each carefull brest:
Or then the nature of a mind opprest:
Made her to know't, or if that all in one,
But now she finds the night away is gone.

Then enters she for to bethinke what end,
The Oracles imported she had dream'd,
To which her fancies Commentar's do lend,
Direct contrare to that they had proclaim'd,
To apprehend the worst she is asham'd:
Loue makes her judge of things in such degree,
Not as they were, but as she wisht to bee.