“I will not poison thee with my attaint, Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coined excuses; My sable ground of sin I will not paint, To hide the truth of this false night’s abuses. My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices, As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale, Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.” By this, lamenting Philomel had ended The well-tuned warble of her nightly sorrow, And solemn night with slow sad gait descended To ugly hell; when, lo, the blushing morrow Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow. But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see, And therefore still in night would cloistered be. Revealing day through every cranny spies, And seems to point her out where she sits weeping, To whom she sobbing speaks: “O eye of eyes, Why pry’st thou through my window? Leave thy peeping, Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping. Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light, For day hath naught to do what’s done by night.” Thus cavils she with everything she sees. True grief is fond and testy as a child, Who wayward once, his mood with naught agrees. Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild. Continuance tames the one; the other wild, Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still With too much labour drowns for want of skill. So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care, Holds disputation with each thing she views, And to herself all sorrow doth compare; No object but her passion’s strength renews, And as one shifts, another straight ensues. Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words; Sometime ’tis mad and too much talk affords. The little birds that tune their morning’s joy Make her moans mad with their sweet melody. For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy; Sad souls are slain in merry company. Grief best is pleased with grief’s society; True sorrow then is feelingly sufficed When with like semblance it is sympathized. ’Tis double death to drown in ken of shore; He ten times pines that pines beholding food; To see the salve doth make the wound ache more; Great grief grieves most at that would do it good; Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood, Who, being stopped, the bounding banks o’erflows; Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows. “You mocking birds,” quoth she, “your tunes entomb Within your hollow-swelling feathered breasts, And in my hearing be you mute and dumb; My restless discord loves no stops nor rests. A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests. Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears; Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears. “Come, Philomel, that sing’st of ravishment, Make thy sad grove in my disheveled hair. As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment, So I at each sad strain will strain a tear And with deep groans the diapason bear; For burden-wise I’ll hum on Tarquin still, While thou on Tereus descants better skill.