Volume Ii Part 15 (1/2)

VIII

- The manners of the market, honest sirs, 'Tis hard to quit when you behold the wares.

You flatter us, or perchance our milliners You flatter; so this vain and outworn She May still be the charmed snake to your soft airs!

A higher lord than Love claim we.

IX

- One day, dear lady, missing the broad track, I came on a wood's border, by a mead, Where golden May ran up to moted black: And there I saw Queen Beauty hold review, With Love before her throne in act to plead.

Take him for me, take her for you.

X

- Ingenious gentleman, the tale is known.

Love pleaded sweetly: Beauty would not melt: She would not melt: he turned in wrath: her throne The shadow of his back froze witheringly, And sobbing at his feet Queen Beauty knelt.

O not such slaves of Love are we!

XI

- Love, lady, like the star above that lance Of radiance flung by sunset on ridged cloud, Sad as the last line of a brave romance! - Young Love hung dim, yet quivering round him threw Beams of fresh fire, while Beauty waned and bowed.

Scorn Love, and dread the doom for you.

XII

- Called she not for her mirror, sir? Forth ran Her women: I am lost, she cried, when lo, Love in the form of an admiring man Once more in adoration bent the knee, And brought the faded Pagan to full blow: For which her throne she gave: not we!

XIII

- My version, madam, runs not to that end.

A certain madness of an hour half past, Caught her like fever; her just lord no friend She fancied; aimed beyond beauty, and thence grew The prim acerbity, sweet Love's outcast.

Great heaven ward off that stroke from you!

XIV

- Your prayer to heaven, good sir, is generous: How generous likewise that you do not name Offended nature! She from all of us Couched idle underneath our showering tree, May quite withhold her most destructive flame; And then what woeful women we!

XV

- Quite, could not be, fair lady; yet your youth May run to drought in visionary schemes: And a late waking to perceive the truth, When day falls shrouding her supreme adieu, Shows darker wastes than unaccomplished dreams: And that may be in store for you.

XVI

- O sir, the truth, the truth! is't in the skies, Or in the gra.s.s, or in this heart of ours?

But O the truth, the truth! the many eyes That look on it! the diverse things they see, According to their thirst for fruit or flowers!

Pa.s.s on: it is the truth seek we.

XVII

- Lady, there is a truth of settled laws That down the past burns like a great watch-fire.