And all-amazed brake off his late intent,
For sharply he did think to reprehend her,
Which cunning love did wittily prevent:
Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!
For on the grass she lies as she were slain,
Till his breath breatheth life in her again.

He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks
He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard;
He chafes her lips, a thousand ways he seeks
To mend the hurt that his unkindness marred;
He kisses her; and she, by her good will,
Will never rise so he will kiss her still.

The night of sorrow now is turned to day:
Her two blue windows' faintly she upheaveth,
Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array
He cheers the morn, and all the world relieveth:
And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,
So is her face illumined with her eye;

Whose beams upon his hairless face are fixed,

As if from thence they borrowed all their shine.
Were never four such lamps together mixed,
Had not his clouded with his brows' repine;2

1 The windows are doubtless the eyelids, but the epithet blue is somewhat startling. We must remember that Shakspeare has described violets as

"Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes."

The propriety of this epithet is fully noticed by us in Cymbeline, Act II. Scene II.

2 Repine. Used as a substantive. Chaucer employs pine in the

same manner.

But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light, Shone like the moon in water seen by night.'

"O, where am I?" quoth she, " in earth or heaven, Or in the ocean drenched, or in the fire? What hour is this? or morn or weary even?

Do I delight to die, or life desire?

But now I lived, and life was death's annoy;
But now I died, and death was lively joy.

"O, thou didst kill me ;-kill me once again:
Thy eyes' shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine,
Hath taught them scornful tricks, and such disdain
That they have murdered this poor heart of minė ;
And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen,
But for thy piteous lips no more had seen.

"Long may they kiss each other, for this cure!
O, never let their crimson liveries wear!
And as they last, their verdure still endure,
To drive infection from the dangerous year!
That the star-gazers, having writ on death,
May say the plague is banished by thy breath.

"Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted, What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?

1 In Shakspeare's early plays we frequently meet the same image that is found in these early poems. Thus in Love's Labor's Lost:

"Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
Through the transparent bosom of the deep

As doth thy face through tears of mine give light;
Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep."

2 The custom of strewing houses with fragrant herbs was universal at a period when the constant recurrence of the plague habituated families to the use of what they considered preventives. It

To sell myself I can be well contented,

So thou wilt buy, and pay, and use good dealing;
Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips,
Set thy seal-manual on my wax-red lips.

"A thousand kisses buys my heart from me;
And pay them at thy leisure, one by one.
What is ten hundred touches unto thee?
Are they not quickly told, and quickly gone?
Say, for non-payment that the debt should dou-

ble,1

1

Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?”

2

"Fair queen," quoth he, "if any love you owe me,
Measure my strangeness with my unripe years;
Before I know myself seek not to know me;
No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears:

The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,
Or, being early plucked, is sour to taste.

"Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait, His day's hot task hath ended in the west: The owl, night's herald, shrieks, 'tis very late; The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest; And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven's light Do summon us to part, and bid good night.

"Now let me say 'good night,' and so say you; If you will say so, you shall have a kiss."

was this cause which rendered Bucklersbury at simpling time such a crowded mart.

1 Here is one of the many traces of Shakspeare's legal studies - an allusion to the penalty for non-payment which formed the condition of a money-bond.

2 Strangeness, coyness or bashfulness.

"Good night," quoth she; and, ere he says " adieu," The honey fee of parting tendered is;

Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace; Incorporate then they seem; face grows to face.

Till, breathless, he disjoined, and backward drew
The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,
Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,
Whereon they surfeit yet complain on drouth;
He with her plenty pressed, she faint with dearth,
(Their lips together glued,) fall to the earth.

Now quick Desire hath caught the yielding prey,
And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth:
Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,

Paying what ransom the insulter willeth ;

Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,

That she will draw his lips' rich treasure dry.

And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,

With blindfold fury she begins to forage;

Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth

boil,

And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage;

Planting oblivion, beating reason back,

Forgetting shame's pure blush, and honor's wrack.

Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing,
Like a wild bird being tamed with too much han-

dling,

Or as the fleet-foot roe that's tired with chasing,
Or like the froward infant stilled with dandling,
He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,
While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.

What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering,
And yields at last to every light impression?1
Things out of hope are compassed oft with venturing,
Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission;
Affection faints not like a pale-faced coward,

But then woos best when most his choice is froward.

When he did frown, O, had she then gave over,
Such nectar from his lips she had not sucked.
Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover;
What though the rose have prickles, yet 'tis plucked:
Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast

Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last.

For pity now she can no more detain him ;

The poor fool 3
prays her that he may depart:
She is resolved no longer to restrain him ;
Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,
The which, by Cupid's bow she doth protest,
He carries thence incagéd in his breast.

"Sweet boy," she says, "this night I'll waste in sorrow, For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch. Tell me, love's master, shall we meet to-morrow? Say, shall we? shall we? wilt thou make the match? "

1 The soft wax upon which the seal attached to a legal instrument was impressed, required to be tempered before the impression was made upon it. So Falstaff says of Justice Shallow, “I have him already tempering between my finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him."

2 Leave, license.

3 No reader of Shakspeare can forget the pathos with which he has employed this expression in another place: "And my poor fool is hanged."