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“O what excuse can my invention make, Within his thought her heavenly image sits,
When thou shalt charge me with so black a deed? And in the self-same seat sits Collatine :
Will not my tongue be mute, my frail joints shake? That eye which looks on her, confounds bis wits;
Mine eyes forego their light, my false heart bleed? That eye which him beholds, as more divine,
The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed; Unto a view so false will not incline;
And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly, But with a pure appeal seeks to the heart, -
But, coward-like, with trembling terrour die. Which, once corrupted, takes the worser part ;
“ Had Collatinus kill'd my son or sire,

And therein beartens up his servile powers,
Or lain ju ambush to betray my life,

Who, flatter'd by their leader's jocund show, Or were he not my dear friend, this desire

Stuff up his lust, as minutes fill up hours ; Might have excuse to work upon his wife; And as their captain, so their pride doth grow, As in revenge or quittal of such strife:

Paying more slavish tribute than they owe.
But as he is my kinsman, my dear friend,

By reprobate desire thus madly led,
The ebame and fault finds no excuse nor end. The Roman lord marcheth to Lucrece' bed.
“ Shameful it is ;-ay, if the fact be known : The locks between her chamber and his will,
Hateful it is ;--there is no hate in loving :

Each one by Irim enforc'd, retires his ward ;
I'll beg her love ;- but she is not her own : But as they open, they all rate his ill,
The worst is but denial, and reproving :

Which drives the creeping thief to some regard : My will is strong, past reason's weak removing. The threshold grates the door to have him heard ; Who fears a sentence or an old man's saw,

Night-wandring weasels sbriek to see him there; Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe.”

They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear. Thus, graceless, holds he disputation

As each unwilling portal yields him way, 'Tween frozen conscience and hot-burning will, Through little vents and crannies of the place And with good thoughts makes dispensation, The wind wars with his torch, to make him stay, Urging the worser sense for vantage still;

And blows the smoke of it into his face, Which in a moment doth confound and kill Extinguishing his conduct in this case; All pure effects, and doth so far proceed,

But his hut heart, which fond desire doth scorch, That what is vile shows like a virtuous deed. Puffs forth another wind that fires the torch: Quoth he, “ She took me kindly by the hand, And being lighted, by the light he spies And gaz'd for tidings in my eager eyes,

Lucretia's glove, wherein her needle sticks; Fearing some hard news from the warlike band He takes it from the rushes where it lies; Where her beloved Collatinus lies.

And griping it, the neeld his finger pricks: O how her fear did make her colour rise !

As who should say, “ This glove to wanton tricks First red as roses that on lawn we lay,

Is not inur'd; return again in haste; Then white as lawn, the roses took away.

Thou seest our mistress' ornaments are chaste." “ And how her hand, in my hand being lock'd, But all these poor forbiddings could not stay him; Forc'd it to tremble with her loyal fear!

He in the worst sense construes their denial : Which struck her sad, and then it faster rock'd, The doors, the wind, the glove that did delay him, Until her husband's welfare she did hear;

He takes for accidental things of trial; Whereat she smiled with so sweet a cheer,

Or as those bars which stop the hourly dial, That bad Narcissus seen her as she stood,

Who with a ling'ring stay his course doth let, Self-love had never drown'd him in the flood.

Till every minute pays the hour his debt. “ Why hunt I then for colour or excuses ?

“ So, so," quoth he, " these lets attend the time, All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth; Like little frosts that sometime threat the spring, Poor wretches have remorse in poor abuses; To add a more rejoicing to the prime, Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth: And give the sneaped birds more cause to sing, Affection is my captain, and he leadeth ;

Pain pays the income of each precious thing; (sands, And when his gaudy banner is display'd,

Huge rocks, high winds, strong pirates, shelves and The coward fights, and will not be dismay'd. The merchant fears, ere rich at home he lands.”

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“ Then childish fear avaunt ! debating die ! Now is he come unto the chamber door
Respect and reason wait on wrinkled age ! That shuts him from the Heaven of his thought,
My heart shall never countermand mine eye: Which with a yielding latch, and with no more,
Sad pause and deep regard beseem the sage; Hath barr'd him from the blessed thing he sought
My part is youth, and beats these from the stage: So from himself impiety hath wrought,
Desire my pilot is, beauty my prize;

That for his prey to pray he doth begiu,
Then who fears sinking where such treasure lies?” As if the Heavens should countenance his sin.
As corn o'ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear But in the midst of his unfruitful prayer,
Is almost chok'd by unresisted lust.

Having solicited the eternal power,
Away he steals with open listening ear,

That bis foul thoughts might compass his fair fair,
Full of foul hope, and full of fond mistrust; And they would stand auspicious to the hour,
Both which, as servitors to the unjust,

Ev'n there he starts:-quoth he, “I must deflower So cross him with their opposite persuasion, The powers to whom I pray, abhor this fact, That now he vows a league, and now invasion. How can they then assist me in the act?

THE RAPE OF LUCRECE.

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" Then Love and Fortune be my gods, my guide! What could he see, but mightily he noted ?
My will is back'd with resolution:

What did he note, but strongly he desired ?
Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried, What he beheld, on that he firmly doted,
The blackest sin is cleard with absolution ; And in his will his wilful eye he tired.
Against love's fire fear's frost hath dissolution. With more than admiration be admired
The eye of Heaven is out, and misty night Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,
Covers the shame that follows sweet delight.” Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.
This said, his guilty hand pluck'd up the latch, As the grim lion fawneth o'er his prey,
And with his koee the door he opens wide: Sharp hunger by the conquest satisfied,
The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch; So o'er this sleeping soul doth Tarquin stay,
Thus treason works ere traitors be espied.

His rage of lust by gazing qualified ;
Who sees the lurking serpent, steps aside ; Slack’d, not suppress’d; for standing by her side,
But she, found sleeping, fearing no such thing, His eye, which late this mutiny restrains,
Lies at the mercy of his mortal sting.

Unto a greater uproar tempts his veins :
Into the chamber wickedly he stalks,

And they, like straggling slaves for pillage fighting,
And gazetb on her yet unstained bed.

Obdurate vassals, fell exploits effecting,
The curtains being close, about he walks,

In bloody death and ravishment delighting,
Rolling his greedy eye-balls in his head':

Nor children's tears, nor mothers' groans respecting,
By their bigb treason is bis heart misled;

Swell in their pride, the onset still expecting :
Which gives the watch-word to his hand full soon, Agon his beating heart, alarum striking,
To draw the cloud that hides the silver Moon. Gives the hot charge, and bids them do their liking.
Look as the fair and firy-pointed Sun,

His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye,
Rushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight; His eye commends the leading to his hand ;
Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun His hand, as proud of such a dignity,
To wink, being blinded with a greater light : Smoking with pride, march'd on to make his stand
Whether it is, that she reflects so bright,

On her bare breast, the heart of all her land;
That dazzleth them, or else some shame supposed; Whose ranks of blue veins, as his hand did scale,
But blind they are, and keep themselves enclosed. Left their round turrets destitute and pale.
O, had they in that darksome prison died, They mustering to the quiet cabinet
Then had they seen the period of their ill! Where their dear guverness and lady lies,
Then Collatine again by Lucrece' side,

Do tell her she is dreadfully beset,
In his clear bed might have reposed still :

And fright her with confusion of their cries :
But they must ope, this blessed league to kill; She, much amaz’d, breaks ope her lock’d-up eyes,
And boly-thoughted Lucrece to their sight Who, peeping forth this tumult to behold,
Must sell her joy, her life, her world's delight. Are by his faming Loreh dimm'd and control'd.
Her lily hand ber rosy cheek lies under,

Imagine her as one in dead of night
Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss;

From forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking,
Who, therefore angry, seems to part in sunder, That thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite,
Swelling on either side to want his bliss ;

Whose grim aspect sets every joint a shaking;
Between whose hills her head entombed is : What terrour 't is! but she, in worser taking,
Where, like a virtuous monument, she lies, From sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view
To be admir'd of lewd unhallow'd eyes.

The sight which makes supposed terrour true.
Without the bed her other fair hand was,

Wrapp'd and confounded in a thousand fears,
On the green coverlet; whose perfect wbite Like to a new-killid bird she trembling lies;
Show'd like an April daisy on the grass,

She dares not look; yet, winking, there appears
With pearly sweat, resembling dew of night. Quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes:
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheath'd their light, Such shadows are the weak brain's forgeries;
And, canopied in darkness, sweetly lay,

Who, angry that the eyes fly from their lights,
Till they might open to adorn the day.

In darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights.
Her hair, like golden tbreads, play'd with her breath; His hand that yet remains upon her breast,
O modest wantons ! wanton modesty!

(Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall!)
Showing life's triumph in the map of death, May feel her heart (poor citizen !) distress'd,
And death's dim look in life's mortality.

Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall,
Each in her sleep themselves so beautify,

Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.
As if between them twain there were no strife, This moves in him more rage, and lesser pity,
But that life liv'd in death, and death in life. To make the breach, and enter this sweet city,
Mer breasts, like ivory globes circled with blue, First, like a trumpet, doth his tongue begin
A pair of maiden worlds unconquered,

To sound a parley to his heartless foe,
Save of their lord no bearing yoke they knew, Who o'er the white sheet peers her whiter chin,
And him by oath they truly honoured.

The reason of this rash alarm to know,
These worlds iu Tarquin new ambition bred ; Which he by dumb demeanour seeks to show;
Who, like a fool msurper, went about

But she with vehement prayers urgeth still,
From this fair throne to heare the owner out. Under what colour he commits this ill.

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Thus he replies: “ The colour in thy face Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye, (That even for anger makes the lily pale,

He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause, And the red rose blush at her own disgrace) While she, the picture of pure piety, Shall plead for me, and tell my loving tale: Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws, Under that colour am I come to scale

Pleads in a wilderness, where are no laws, Thy never-conquer'd fort; the fault is thine, To the rough beast that knows no gentle right, For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine. Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite. " Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide: Look, when a black-fac'd cloud the world doth threa, Thy beauty hath ensnar'd thee to this night, In his dim mist th' aspiring mountains hiding, Where thou with patience must my will abide, From earth's dark womb some gentle gust doth get, My will that marks thee for my earth's delight, Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding, Which I to conquer sought with all my might; Hindering their present fall by this dividing; But as reproof and reason beat it dead,

So his unhallow'd haste her words delays, By thy bright beauty was it newly bred.

And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays. “ I see what crosses my attempt will bring; Yet, foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally, I know what thorns the growing rose defends; While in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth: I think the honey guarded with a sting;

Her sad behaviour feeds his vulture folly, All this, beforehand, counsel comprehends: A swallowing gulf that ev'n in plenty wanteth: But will is deaf, and hears no heedful friends ; His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty,

No penetrable entrance to her plaining; And dotes on what he looks, 'gajost law or duty. Tears harden lust, though marble wear with raining. “ I have debated, even in my soul,

Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fixed What wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall breed; in the remorseless wrinkles of his face; But nothing can affection's course control,

Her modest eloquence with sighs is mixed, Or stop the headlong fury of his speed.

Which to her oratary adds more grace. I know repentant tears ensue the deed,

She puts the period often from his place, Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity;

And midst the sentence so her accent breaks, Yet strive I to embrace mine infamy."

That twice she doth begin ere once she speaks. This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade, She conjures him by high almighty Jove, Which like a faulcon towering in the skies,

By knighthood, gentry, and sweet friendship's oath, Coucheth the fowl below with his wings' shade, By her untimely tears, her husband's love, Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies : By holy human law, and common troth, So under the insulting falchion lies

By Heaven and Earth, and all the power of both, Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells,

That to his borrow'd bed he make retire, With trembling fear, as fowl hear faulcons' bells. And stoop to honour, not to foul desire. “Lucrece," quoth he, “this night I must enjoy thee: Quoth she, “ Reward not hospitality If thou deny, then force must work my way, With such black payment as thou hast pretended; For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee;

Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee; That done, some worthless slave of thine I 'll slay, Mar not the thing that cannot be amended; To kill thine honour with thy life's decay; End thy ill aim, before thy shoot be ended: And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him, He is no wood-man that doth bend his bow Swearing I slew bim, seeing thee embrace him. To strike a poor unseasonable doe. “ So thy surviving husband shall remain

“ My husband is thy friend, for his sake spare me; The scornful mark of every open eye;

Thyself art mighty, for thine own sake leave me; Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain, Myself a weakling, do not then ensnare me. Thy issue blurr'd with nameless bastardy:

Thou look'st not like deceit; do not deceive me: And thou, the author of their obloquy,

My sighs, like whirlwiods, labour bence to heave thee. Shall have thy trespass cited up in rhymes, If ever man were mov'd with woman's moans, And sung by children in succeeding tiines.

Be moved with my tears, my sighs, my groans ; “ But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend : “ All which together, like a troubled ocean, The fault unknown is as a thought unacted; Beat at thy rocky and wreck-threatening heart, A little harm, done to a great good end,

To soften it with their continual motion;
For lawful policy remains enacted.

For stones dissolv'd to water do convert.
The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted O, if no harder than a stone thou art,
In a pure compound; being so applied,

Melt at my tears and be compassionate!
His venom in effect is purified.

Soft pity enters at an iron gate. “ Then for thy husband's and thy children's sake, “ In Tarquin's likeness I did entertain thee: Tender my suit: bequeath not to their lot

Hast thou pet on his shape to do bim shame? The shame that from them no device can take, To all the host of Heaven I complain me, (name. The blemish that will never be forgot ;

Thou wrong'st his honour, wound'st his princely Worse than a slavish wipe, or birth-hour's blot : Thou art not what thou seem'st; and if the same, For marks descried in men's nativity

Thou seem'st not what thou art, a god, a king ; Are Nature's faults, not their own infamy." For kings like gods should govern every thing.

" How will thy shame be seeded in thine age, “ So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state" | When thus thy vices bud before thy spring ? “No more," quoth he, “by Heaven I will not bear If in thy hope thou dar'st do such outrage, Yield to my love ; if not, enforced hate, (thee: What darist thou not when once thou art a king ? Instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee; O be remember'd, no outrageous thing

That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee
From vassal actors can be wip'd away;

Unto the base bed of some rascal groom,
Then kings' misdeeds cannot be hid in clay. To be thy partner in this shameful doom."
* This deed will make thee only lov'd for fear, This said, he sets his foot upon the light,
But happy monarchs still are fear'd for love: For light and lust are deadly enemies:
With foul offenders thou perforce must bear, Shame folded up in blind concealing night,
When they in thee the like offences prove:

When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize. If but for fear of this, thy will remove;

The wolf hath seiz'd his prey, the poor lamb cries, For princes are the glass, the school, the book, Till with her own white fleece her voice controllid Where sabjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look. Entombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold : * And wilt thou be the school where lust shalllearn? For with the nightly linen that she wears, Must be in thee read lectures of such shame? He pens her piteous clamours in her head; Wilt thou be glass, wherein it shall discer Cooling his hot face in the cbastest tears Authority for sin, warrant for blame,

That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed. To privilege dishonour in thy name?

O, that prone lust should stain so pure a bed ! Thou back'st reproach against long-living laud, The spots whereof could weeping purify, And mak'st fair reputation but a bawd.

Her tears should drop on them perpetually. “ Hast thou command ? by him that gave it thee, But she hath lost a dearer thing than life, From a pure heart command thy rebel will: And he hath won what he would lose again, Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity,

This forced league doth force a further strife, For it was lent thee all that brood to kill.

This momentary joy breeds months of pain,
Thy princely office how canst thou fulfil,

This bot desire converts to cold disdain:
When, pattern'd by thy fault, foul Sin may say, Pure chastity is rified of her store,
He lear'd to sin, and thou didst teach the way? And lust, the thief, far poorer than before.
Think bat how vile a spectacle it were

Look as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk,
To view thy present tresssed in another.

Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight,
Men's faalts do seldom to themselves appear; Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk
Their own transgressions partially they smother : The prey wherein by nature they delight;
This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother. So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night:
O how are they wrapp'd in with infamies,

His taste delicious, in digestion souring,
That from their owi misdeeds askaunce their eyes! Devours his will that liv'd by foul devouring.
* To thee, to thee, my heav'd-up hands appeal, O deeper sin than bottomless conceit
Not to sedacing last, thy rash relier ;

Can comprehend io still imagination !
I see for exil'd majesty's repeal;

Drunken desire must vomit his receipt, Let him return, and flattering thoughts retire: Ere he can see his own abomination. His true respect will ’prison false desire,

While lust is in his pride, no exclamation And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne, Can curb his heat, or rein his rash desire, That thou shalt see thy state, and pity mine." Till, like a jade, self-will himself doth tire. " Hare done,” quoth he; “my uncontrolled tide And then with lank and lean discolour'd cheek, Tarns rot, but swells the higher by this let. With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace, Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide, Feeble desire, all recreant, poor, and meek, And with the wind in greater fury fret:

Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case: The petty streams that pay a daily debt

The flesh being proud, desire doth fight with grace, To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls' haste, For there it revels; and when that decays, Add to his flow, but alter not his taste."

The guilty rebel for remission prays. “ Thou art," quoth she, “a sea, a sovereigo king; So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome, And lo, tbete falls into thy boundless flood Who this accomplishment so hotly chased; Black lust, dishonour, shame misgoverning, For now against himself be sounds this doom, Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood. That through the length of times he stands disgraced: If all these petty ills shall change thy good, Besides, his soul's fair temple is defaced; Thy sea within a puddle's womb is hersed, To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares, And not the puddle in thy sea dispersed.

To ask the spotted princess how she fares. "So shall these slaves be king, and thon their slave; she says, her subjects with foul insurrection Thon pobly base, they basely dignified ;

Have batter'd down her consecrated wall, Thon their fair life, and they thy fouler grave; And by their mortal fault brought in subjection Thoa loathed in their shame, they in thy pride : Her immortality, and made her thrall The lesser thing should not the greater hide ; To living death, and pain perpetual: The cedar stoops not to the base shrub's foot, Which in her prescience she controlled still, But low shrubs wither at the cedar's root. But her fore-sight could not fore-stall their will. VOL V.

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Even in his thought, throngh the dark night he “ Where now I have no one to blash with me,
A captive victor, that hath lost in gain; (stealeth, To cross their arms, and bang their heads with mine,
Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth, To mask their brows, and hide their infamy;
The scar that will, despite of cure, remain, But I alone, alone must sit and pine,
Leaving his spoil perplex'd in greater pain. Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine,
She bears the load of lust he left behind,

Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans, And he the burthen of a guilty mind.

Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans. He, like a theevish dog, creeps sadly thence, “ O Night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke, She like a wearied lamb lies panting there; Let not the jealous day behold that face He scouls, and hates himself for his offence, Which underneath thy black all-biding cloke She desperate, with her nails her flesh doth tear; Immodestly lies martyr'd with disgrace! He faintly flies, sweating with guilty fear;

Keep still possession of thy gloomy place, She stays exclaiming on the direful night,

That all the faults which in thy reign are made, He runs, and chides his vanish'd, loath'd, delight. May likewise be sepùlcher'd in thy shade! He thence departs a heavy convertite,

" Make me not object to the tell-tale day! She there remains a hopeless cast-away:

The light will show, charàcter'd in my brow,
He in his speed looks for the morning light, The story of sweet chastity's decay,
She prays she never may behold the day:

The impious breach of holy wedlock's vow :
“For day,"quoth she, “ night-scapes doth open lay; Yea, the illiterate, that know not hov:
And nay true eyes have never practis'd how To 'cipher what is writ in learned books,
To cloke offences with a cunning brow.

Will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks.
They think not but that every eye can see “ The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story,
The same disgrace which they themselves bebold; And fright her crying babe with Tarquin's name;
And therefore would they still in darkness be, The orator, to deck his oratory,
To have their unseen sin remain untold ;

Will couple my reproach to Tarquin's shame: For they their guilt with weeping will unfold, Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame, And grave, like water that doth eat in steel, Will tie the hearers to attend each line, Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel." How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine. Here she exclaims against repose and rest, “ Let my good name, that senseless reputation, And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind.

For Collatine's dear love be kept unspotted : She wakes her heart by beating on her breast, If that be made a theine for disputation, And bids it leap from thence, where it may find The branches of another root are rotted, Some purer chest, to close so pure a mind.

And undeservd reproach to him allotted, Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite That is as clear from this attaint of mine, Against the unseen secresy of night.

As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine. “ O comfort-killing Night, image of Hell ! “ O unseen shame! invisible disgrace! Dim register and notary of shame!

O unfelt sore! crest-wounding, private scar! Black stage for tragedies and murders fell! Reproach is stamp'd in Collatinus' face, Vast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame ! And Tarquin's eye may read the mot afar, Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame ! How he in peace is wounded, not in war. Grim cave of death, whispering conspirator

Alas, how many bear such shameful blows, With close-tongued treason and the ravisber! Which not themselves, but he that gives them, knows!

" O hateful, vaporous and foggy Night,
Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,
Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,
Make war against proportion'd course of time!
Or if thou wilt permit the Sun to climb
His wonted height, yet, ere he go to bed,
Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.

“ With rotten damps ravish the morning air;
Let their exbal'd unwholesome breaths make sick
The life of purity, the supreme fair,
Ere he arrive his weary noon-tide priek;
And let thy misty vapours march so thick,
That in their smoky ranks his smotber'd light
May set at noon, and make perpetual vight.
“ Were Tarqnin night, (as he is but might's child)
The silver-shining queen he would distain ;
Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defil'd,
Through night's black bosom should not peep again;
So should I have copartners in my pain:
And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,
As palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage.

“ If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me,
From me by strong assault it is bereft.
My honey lost, and I, a dronc-like bee,
Hare no perfection of my summer left,
But robb’d and ransack'd by injurious theft :
In thy weak bive a wandering wasp bath crept,
And suck'd the boney which thy chaste bee kept.
“ Yet am I guiltless of thy honour's wreck';
Yet for thy honour did I entertain him;
Coming from thee, I could not put him back,
For it had been dishonour to disdain him :
Besides of weariness he did complain him,
And talk'd of virtue:-0 unlook'd for evil,
When virtue is prophan'd in such a devil !
“ Why should the worm intrude the maiden bad?
Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?
Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud?
Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts ?
Or kings be breakers of their own behests?
But no perfection is so absolute,
That some impurity doth not pollute.