A Lover's Complaint was first published in 1609, at the end of the Sonnets. There is no evidence by which to determine the date of its composition; I scarcely think, however, that it can have come very early, the style of the poem being, to my mind, much more difficult and involved than that of Venus and Adonis or Lucrece. Indeed, the sense at times is really obscure, perhaps, though, through corruption of the text; lines 240-242, for instance, can hardly have come down to us just as Shakespeare wrote them. The merits of the poem speak for themselves. It is a beautiful piece of narrative verse which makes us wish once more that Shakespeare had given the world a larger body of such poetry, instead, say, of wrestling into shape the formless chaos of Henry VI. parts i. ii. and iii. Titus Andronicus, too, with its midsummer madness of bloodthirsty melodrama, could have been spared, if a second Lover's Complaint had been the substitute. Very noticeable in the present poem is the effortless ease of the narra

tive. The poet's muse does not soar to the empyrean, essaying "things unattempted yet." She wings the middle air with a sustained flight that never falters. It is the same great faculty of telling a story that makes Venus and Adonis and Lucrece such perfect specimens of the narrator's act. Beautiful, too, is the elaboration and preciousness (almost) of the style in the purely descriptive passages, as where the deserted Ariadne describes the faithless Theseus; while throughout the poem, under the fanciful language, beats just a sufficiency of passion and emotion. Among the old commentators none speaks with more sympathy of A Lover's Complaint than Malone; and he makes, I think, rather a happy criticism when he says that the poem reads like a challenge to Spenser on his own ground. A Lover's Complaint has a distinctly Spenserian flavour; it has much of Spenser's stately pathos, and sense of physical beauty, and exquisite verbal melody; and, Spenserian or not, it is wholly charming.

From off a hill whose concave womb re-worded1
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits t' attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laid to list the sad-tun'd tale;
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcass of a beauty spent and done:
Time hath not scythed all that youth begun,

1 Re-worded, re-echoed.

2 Hive, a kind of bonnet, resembling a hive.

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Or monarch's hands that let not bounty fall
Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.
Of folded schedules had she many a one,
Which she perus'd, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood;
Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone,
Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;
Found yet more letters sadly penn'd in blood,
With sleided silk feat and affectedly
Enswath'd, and seal'd to curious secrecy.
These often bath'd she in her fluxive eyes,
And often kiss'd, and often gan to tear;
Cried, "O false blood, thou register of lies,
What unapproved witness dost thou bear!

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A reverend man that graz'd his cattle nigh-
Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew
Of court, of city, and had let go by
The swiftest hours, observed as they flew-
Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew,
And, privileg'd by age, desires to know
In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.
So slides he down upon his grained bat,
And comely-distant sits he by her side;
When he again desires her, being sat,
Her grievance with his hearing to divide:
If that from him there may be aught applied
Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,

'Tis promis'd in the charity of age.

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I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied
Love to myself, and to no love beside.

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"But, woe is me! too early I attended
A youthful suit-it was to gain my grace-
Of one by nature's outwards so commended,
That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face:
Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place;
And when in his fair parts she did abide,
She was new lodg'd, and newly deified.

"His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;
And every light occasion of the wind
Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.
What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:
Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind;
For on his visage was in little drawn
What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn. 1

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"Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
His phoenix2 down began but to appear,
Like unshorn velvet, on that termless3 skin,
Whose bare out-bragg'd the web it seem'd to wear:
Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear;
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
If best were as it was, or best without.

His qualities were beauteous as his form, For maiden-tongu'd he was, and thereof free; 100 Yet, if men mov'd him, was he such a storm As oft 'twixt May and April is to see, When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be. His rudeness so with his authoriz'd youth Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.

"Well could he ride, and often men would say,
"That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop
he makes!'

And controversy hence a question takes,
Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.
"But quickly on this side the verdict went:
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case:4

1 Sawn, sown; or perhaps, seen.

2 Phonix, i.e. matchless.

3 Termless, indescribable; cf. phraseless in line 225. 4 Case, ornaments, dress.

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All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,
Came for additions; yet their purpos'd trim
Piec'd not his grace, but were all grac'd by him.
"So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kind of arguments and question deep,
All replication prompt, and reason strong,
For his advantage still did wake and sleep:
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
He had the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will:

"That he did in the general bosom reign
Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,
To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain 129
In personal duty, following where he haunted:
Consents bewitch'd, ere he desire, have granted;
And dialogu'd for him what he would say,
Ask'd their own wills, and made their wills obey.

"Many there were that did his picture get,
To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;
Like fools that in th' imagination set
The goodly objects which abroad they find
Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assign'd;
And labouring in more pleasures to bestow them
Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them:
"So many have, that never touch'd his hand,
Sweetly suppos'd them mistress' of his heart. 142
My woful self, that did in freedom stand,
And was my own fee-simple, not in part,
What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
Threw my affections in his charmed power,
Reserv'd the stalk, and gave him all my flower.
"Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of him, nor being desir'd yielded;
Finding myself in honour so forbid,
With safest distance I mine honour shielded:
Experience for me many bulwarks builded
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil6
Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.

"But, ah, who ever shunn'd by precedent
The destin'd ill she must herself assay?
Or forc'd examples, 'gainst her own content,
To put the by-pass'd perils in her way?
Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;
For when we rage, advice is often seen
By blunting us to make our wits more keen.

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Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,
That we must curb it upon others' proof;1
To be forbod the sweets that seem so good,
For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.
O appetite, from judgment stand aloof!
The one a palate hath that needs will taste,
Though Reason weep, and cry, 'It is thy last.'
"For further I could say, "This man's untrue,'
And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling; 170
Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew,
Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;
Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;
Thought characters and words merely but art,
And bastards of his foul-adulterate heart.
"And long upon these terms I held my city,
Till thus he gan besiege me: 'Gentle maid,
Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity.
And be not of my holy vows afraid:

That's to ye sworn to none was ever said;
For feasts of love I have been call'd unto,
Till now did ne'er invite, nor never woo.

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"And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,
With twisted metal amorously impleach'd,4
I have receiv'd from many a several fair,-
Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd,—
With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,
And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify
Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality. 210
"The diamond,-why, 't was beautiful and hard,
Whereto his invis'd5 properties did tend;
The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard
Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;
The heaven-hu'd sapphire, and the opal blend
With objects manifold: each several stone,
With wit well blazon'd, smil'd or made some moan.
"Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,
Of pensiv'd and subdu'd desires the tender,
Nature hath charg'd me that I hoard them not,
But yield them up where I myself must render,
That is, to you, my origin and ender;
For these, of force, must your oblations be,
Since I their altar, you enpatron me.

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""O, then, advance of yours that phraseless hand,
Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;
Take all these similes to your own command,
Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise;
What me your minister, for you obeys,
Works under yon; and to your audit comes
Their distract parcels in combined sums.
"Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,
A sister sanctified, of holiest note;
Which late her noble suit in court did shun,
Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;
For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,
But kept cold distance, and did thence remove,
To spend her living in eternal love.

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"But, O my sweet, what labour is 't to leave
The thing we have not, mastering what not strives,-
Playing the place which did no form receive,
Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves?
She that her fame so to herself contrives,
The scars of battle scapeth by the flight,
And makes her absence valiant, not her might.
"O, pardon me, in that my boast is true:
The accident which brought me to her eye

4 Impleach'd, entwined.

5 Invis'd invisible.

• Pensiv'd, pensive.

7 Phraseless, that baffles description.

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"My parts had power to charm a sacred nun,
Who, disciplin'd, ay, dieted in grace,
Believ'd her eyes when they t'assail begun,
All vows and consecrations giving place:
O most potential love! vow, bond, nor space,
In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,
For thou art all, and all things else are thine.
“When thou impressest, what are precepts worth
Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,
How coldly those impediments stand forth
Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!
Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense,
'gainst shame;

And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,
The aloes1 of all forces, shocks, and fears.

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"Now all these hearts that do on mine depend, Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine; And supplicant their sighs to you extend,

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To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine,
Lending soft audience to my sweet design,
And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath
That shall prefer and undertake my troth.'
"This said, his watery eyes he did dismount, 2
Whose sights till then were levell'd on my face;
Each cheek a river running from a fount
With brinish current downward flow'd apace:
O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!
Who glaz'd with crystal gate the glowing roses
That flame through water which their hue encloses.
"O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear!

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"In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,
Or swounding paleness; and he takes and leaves,
In either's aptness, as it best deceives,
To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,
Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows:
"That not a heart which in his level came
Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim, 310
Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;
And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim:
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury,6
He preach'd pure maid, and prais'd cold chastity.
"Thus merely with the garment of a Grace
The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd;
That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,
Which, like a cherubin, above them hover'd.
Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?
Ay me! I fell; and yet do question make
What I should do again for such a sake.

"O, that infected moisture of his eye,
O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd,
O, that forc'd thunder from his heart did fly,
O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd,
O, all that borrow'd motion seeming ow'd,8
Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd,
And new pervert a reconciled maid!"

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