BASILIUS O man, take heed, how thou the gods do move To causeful wrath, which thou can’st not resist. Blasphemous words the speaker vain do prove. Alas while we are wrapped in foggy mist Of our self-love, so passions do deceive, We think they hurt, when most they do assist. To harm us worms should that high justice leave His nature? nay himself? for so it is. What glory from our loss can he receive? But still our dazzled eyes their way do miss, While that we do at his sweet scourge repine, The kindly way do beat us on to bliss. If she must die then hath she passed the line Of loathsome days, whose loss how can’st thou moan, That dost so well their miseries define? But such we are with inward tempest blown Of winds quite contrary in waves of will: We moan that lost, which had we did bemoan. {189} PLANGUS And shall she die? shall cruel fire spill Those beams that set so many hearts on fire? Hath she not force even death with love to kill: Nay, even cold death inflam’d with hot desire Her to enjoy where joy itself is thrall, Will spoil the earth of his most rich attire: Thus death becomes a rival to us all, And hopes with foul embracements her to get, In whose decay virtue’s fair shrine must fall. O virtue weak, shall death his triumph set Upon thy spoils, which never should lie waste? Let death first die; be thou his worthy let. By what eclipse shall that sun be defac’d? What mine hath erst thrown down so fair a tower? What sacrilege hath such a saint disgrac’d? The world the garden is, she is the flower That sweetens all the place; she is the guest Of rarest price, both heaven and earth her bower. And shall, O me! all this in ashes rest? Alas if you a Phoenix new will have Burnt by the sun, she first must build her nest. But well you know, the gentle sun would save Such beams so like his own, which might have might In him the thoughts of Phaeton’s dam to grave, Therefore, alas, you use vile Vulcan’s spite, Which nothing spares, to melt that virgin wax, Which while it is, it is all Asia’s light. O Mars, for what doth serve thy armed ax? To let that wit-old beast consume in flames Thy Venus child, whose beauty Venus lacks? O Venus, if her praise no envy frames In thy high mind, get her thy husband’s grace Sweet speaking oft a currish heart reclaims. O eyes of mine, where once she saw her face, Her face which was more lively in my heart: O brain, where thought of her hath only place; O hand, which touch’d her hand when we did part; O lips that kiss’d that hand with my tears spent; O tongue, then dumb, not daring tell my smart; O soul, whose love in her is only spent, What ere you see, think, touch, kiss, speak, or love, Let all for her, and unto her be bent.