Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder.
The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,
Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven’s thunder.
The iron bit he crusheth ‘tween his teeth,
Controlling what he was controlled with.
His ears up-pricked, his braided hanging mane
Upon his compassed crest now stand on end;
His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send.
His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,
Shows his hot courage and his high desire.
Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps,
With gentle majesty and modest pride.
Anon he rears upright, curvets, and leaps,
As who should say, ‘Lo, thus my strength is tried,
And this I do to captivate the eye
Of the fair breeder that is standing by.’
What recketh he his rider’s angry stir,
His flattering ‘Holla’, or his ‘Stand, I sayl’?
What cares he now for curb or pricking spur,
For rich caparisons or trappings gay?
He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,
For nothing else with his proud sight agrees.
Look when a painter would surpass the life
In limning out a well proportioned steed,
His art with nature’s workmanship at strife,
As if the dead the living should exceed:
So did this horse excel a common one
In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone.
Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing
strong;
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide—
Look what a horse should have he did not lack,
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.
Sometime he scuds far off, and there he stares;
Anon he starts at stirring of a feather.
To bid the wind a base he now prepares,
And whe’er he run or fly they know not whether;
For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,
Fanning the hairs, who wave like feathered wings.
He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;
She answers him as if she knew his mind.
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,
Spurns at his love, and scorns the heat he feels,
Beating his kind embracements with her heels.
Then, like a melancholy malcontent,
He vails his tail that, like a falling plume,
Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent.
He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.
His love, perceiving how he was enraged,
Grew kinder, and his fury was assuaged.
His testy master goeth about to take him,
When lo, the unbacked breeder, full of fear,
Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,
With her the horse, and left Adonis there.
As they were mad unto the wood they hie them,
Outstripping crows that strive to overfly them.
All swoll’n with chafing, down Adonis sits,
Banning his boist’rous and unruly beast;
And now the happy season once more fits
That lovesick love by pleading may be blessed;
For lovers say the heart hath treble wrong
When it is barred the aidance of the tongue.
An oven that is stopped, or river stayed,
Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage.
So of concealed sorrow may be said
Free vent of words love’s fire doth assuage.
But when the heart’s attorney once is mute,
The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.
He sees her coming, and begins to glow,
Even as a dying coal revives with wind,
And with his bonnet hides his angry brow,
Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,
Taking no notice that she is so nigh,
For all askance he holds her in his eye.
O, what a sight it was wistly to view
How she came stealing to the wayward boy,
To note the fighting conflict of her hue,
How white and red each other did destroy!
But now her cheek was pale; and by and by
It flashed forth fire, as lightning from the sky.
Now was she just before him as he sat,
And like a lowly lover down she kneels;
With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat;
Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels.
His tend’rer cheek receives her soft hand’s print
As apt as new-fall’n snow takes any dint.
O, what a war of looks was then between them,
Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing!
His eyes saw her eyes as they had not seen them;
Her eyes wooed still; his eyes disdained the wooing;
And all this dumb play had his acts made plain
With tears which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.
Full gently now she takes him by the hand,
A lily prisoned in a jail of snow,
Or ivory in an alabaster band;
So white a friend engirds so white a foe.
This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,
Showed like two silver doves that sit a-billing.
Once more the engine of her thoughts began:
‘O fairest mover on this mortal round,
Would thou wert as I am, and I am an,
My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound;
For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,
Though nothing but my body’s bane would cure
thee.’
‘Give me my hand,’ saith he. ‘Why dost thou feel it?’
‘Give me my heart,’ saith she, ‘and thou shalt have it.
O, give it me, lest thy hard heart do steel it,
And, being steeled, soft sighs can never grave it;
Then love’s deep groans I never shall regard,
Because Adonis’ heart hath made mine hard.’
‘For shame,’ he cries, ‘let go, and let me go!
My day’s delight is past; my horse is gone,
And ‘tis your fault I am bereft him so.
I pray you hence, and leave me here alone;
For all my mind, my thought, my busy care
Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.’
Thus she replies: ‘Thy palfrey, as he should,
Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire.
Affection is a coal that must be cooled,
Else, suffered, it will set the heart on fire.
The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none;
Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.
‘How like a jade he stood tied to the tree,
Servilely mastered with a leathern rein!
But when he saw his love, his youth’s fair fee,
He held such petty bondage in disdain,
Throwing the base thong from his bending crest,
Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.
‘Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,
Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,
But when his glutton eye so full hath fed
His other agents aim at like delight?
Who is so faint that dares not be so bold
To touch the fire, the weather being cold?
‘Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy;
And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,
To t
ake advantage on presented joy.
Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.
O, learn to love! The lesson is but plain,
And, once made perfect, never lost again.’
‘I know not love,’ quoth he, ‘nor will not know it,
Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it.
’Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it.
My love to love is love but to disgrace it;
For I have heard it is a life in death,
That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.
‘Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinished?
Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?
If springing things be any jot diminished,
They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth.
The colt that’s backed and burdened being young,
Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.
‘You hurt my hand with wringing. Let us part,
And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat.
Remove your siege from my unyielding heart;
To love’s alarms it will not ope the gate.
Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your
flatt‘ry;
For where a heart is hard they make no batt’ry.’
‘What, canst thou talk?’ quoth she. ‘Hast thou a tongue?
O, would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing!
Thy mermaid’s voice hath done me double wrong.
I had my load before, now pressed with bearing:
Melodious discord, heavenly tune harsh sounding,
Ears’ deep-sweet music, and heart’s deep-sore
wounding.
‘Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love
That inward beauty and invisible;
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move
Each part in me that were but sensible.
Though neither eyes nor ears to hear nor see,
Yet should I be in love by touching thee.
‘Say that the sense of feeling were bereft me,
And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,
And nothing but the very smell were left me,
Yet would my love to thee be still as much;
For from the stillitory of thy face excelling
Comes breath perfumed, that breedeth love by
smelling.
‘But O, what banquet wert thou to the taste,
Being nurse and feeder of the other four!
Would they not wish the feast might ever last
And bid suspicion double-lock the door
Lest jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,
Should by his stealing-in disturb the feast?’
Once more the ruby-coloured portal opened
Which to his speech did honey passage yield,
Like a red morn that ever yet betokened
Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.
This ill presage advisedly she marketh.
Even as the wind is hushed before it raineth,
Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,
Or as the berry breaks before it staineth,
Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,
His meaning struck her ere his words begun,
And at his look she flatly falleth down,
For looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth;
A smile recures the wounding of a frown,
But blessed bankrupt that by loss so thriveth!
The silly boy, believing she is dead,
Claps her pale cheek till clapping makes it red,
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 earth 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 brow’s repine.
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 mine,
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?
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 double,
Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?’
‘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.’
‘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 thirs
ty lips well knew,
Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drought.
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 honour’s wrack.
Hot, faint, and weary with her hard embracing,
Like a wild bird being tamed with too much handling,
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 temp‘ring
And yields at last to every light impression?
Things out of hope are compassed oft with vent’ring,
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 83