| |
| ONCE, and but once, found in thy company, | |
| All thy supposed escapes 1 are laid on me; | |
| And as a thief at bar is question’d there | |
| By all the men that have been robb’d that year, | |
| So am I—by this traitorous means surprized— | 5 |
| By thy hydroptic father catechized. | |
| Though he had wont to search with glazèd eyes, | |
| As though he came to kill a cockatrice; | |
| Though he hath oft sworn that he would remove | |
| Thy beauty’s beauty, and food of our love, | 10 |
| Hope of his goods, if I with thee were seen, | |
| Yet close and secret, as our souls, we’ve been. | |
| Though thy immortal mother, which doth lie | |
| Still buried in her bed, yet will not die, | |
| Takes this advantage to sleep out daylight, | 15 |
| And watch thy entries and returns all night; | |
| And, when she takes thy hand, and would seem kind, | |
| Doth search what rings and armlets she can find; | |
| And kissing notes the colour of thy face; | |
| And fearing lest thou’rt swollen, doth thee embrace; | 20 |
| And 2 to try if thou long, doth name strange meats; | |
| And notes thy paleness, blushing, 3 sighs, and sweats; | |
| And politicly will to thee confess | |
| The sins of her own youth’s rank lustiness; 4 | |
| Yet love these sorceries did remove, and move | 25 |
| Thee to gull thine own mother for my love. | |
| Thy little brethren, which like fairy sprites | |
| Oft skipp’d into our chamber, those sweet nights, | |
| And kiss’d, and ingled 5 on thy father’s knee, | |
| Were bribed next day to tell what they did see; | 30 |
| The grim-eight-foot-high-iron-bound serving-man, | |
| That oft names God in oaths, and only then, | |
| He that, to bar the first gate, doth as wide | |
| As the great Rhodian Colossus stride | |
| —Which, if in hell no other pains there were, | 35 |
| Makes me fear hell, because he must be there— | |
| Though by thy father he were hired to this, | |
| Could never witness any touch or kiss. | |
| But O! too common ill, I brought with me | |
| That, which betray’d me to mine 6 enemy, | 40 |
| A loud perfume, which at my entrance cried | |
| E’en at thy father’s nose; so were we spied. | |
| When, like a tyrant king, that in his bed | |
| Smelt 7 gunpowder, the pale wretch shivered, | |
| Had it been some bad smell, he would have thought | 45 |
| That his own feet, or breath, that smell 8 had wrought; | |
| But as we in our isle imprisoned, | |
| Where cattle only and divers dogs are bred, | |
| The precious unicorns strange monsters call, | |
| So thought he good strange, 9 that had none at all. | 50 |
| I taught my silks their whistling to forbear; | |
| Even my oppress’d shoes dumb and speechless were; | |
| Only thou bitter-sweet, whom I had laid | |
| Next me, me traitorously hast betray’d, | |
| And unsuspected hast invisibly | 55 |
| At once fled unto him, and stay’d with me. | |
| Base excrement of earth, which dost confound | |
| Sense from distinguishing the sick from sound! | |
| By thee the silly amorous sucks his death | |
| By drawing in a leprous harlot’s breath; | 60 |
| By thee, the greatest stain to man’s estate | |
| Falls on us, to be call’d effeminate; | |
| Though you be much loved in the prince’s hall, | |
| There things that seem exceed substantial; | |
| Gods, when ye fumed on altars, were pleased well, | 65 |
| Because you were burnt, not that they liked your smell; | |
| You’re loathsome all, being taken simply alone; | |
| Shall we love ill things join’d, and hate each one? | |
| If you were good, your good doth soon decay; | |
| And you are rare; that takes the good away: | 70 |
| And my perfumes I give most willingly | |
| To embalm thy father’s corpse; what? will he die? | |
