Page 2329 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

«Poor broken glass, I often did behold
In thy sweet semblance my old age new-born;
But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and old, [1760]
Shows me a bare-bon’d death by time outworn.

O from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn,
And shiver’d all the beauty of my glass,
That I no more can see what once I was.

«O time, cease thou thy course and last no longer, [1765]

If they surcease to be that should survive!
Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger,
And leave the falt’ring feeble souls alive?
The old bees die, the young possess their hive;
Then live, sweet Lucrece, live again and see [1770]

Thy father die, and not thy father thee!»

By this, starts Collatine as from a dream,
And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place;
And then in key-cold Lucrece’ bleeding stream
He falls and bathes the pale fear in his face, [1775]

And counterfeits to die with her a space;
Till manly shame bids him possess his breath,
And live to be revenged on her death.

The deep vexation of his inward soul

Hath serv’d a dumb arrest upon his tongue; [1780]
Who, mad that sorrow should his use control
Or keep him from heart-easing words so long,
Begins to talk; but through his lips do throng

Weak words, so thick come in his poor heart’s aid
That no man could distinguish what he said. [1785]

Yet sometime «Tarquin» was pronounced plain,
But through his teeth, as if the name he tore.
This windy tempest, till it blow up rain,

Held back his sorrow’s tide, to make it more.
At last it rains, and busy winds give o’er; [1790]