Wonder of time (quoth she) this is my spight, That, you be ing dead, the day should yet be light. Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend; It shall be waited on with jealousy, Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end, Ne'er settled equally to high or low;

That all love's pleasures shall not match his woe. It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud; And shall be blasted in a breathing while, The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd With sweets, that shall the sharpest sight beguile, The strongest body shall it make most weak, Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak.

It shall be sparing, and too full of riot,

Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;2
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,

Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;
It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,
Make the young old, the old become a child.
It shall suspect, where is no cause of fear;
It shall not fear, where it should most mistrust:
It shall be merciful and too severe,

And most deceiving when it seems most just:
Perverse it shall be, when it seems most toward,
Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.

It shall be cause of war and dire events,
And set dissention 'twixt the son and sire;
Subject and servile to all discontents,

As dry combustious matter is to fire.

Sith, in his prime, death doth my love destroy, They that love best their love shall not enjoy. By this the boy that by her side lay kill'd, Was melted like a vapour from her sight, And in his blood, that on the ground lay spill'd, A purple flower sprung up chequer'd with white, Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood, Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood,

[2]Tread the measures, i. e. to dance. MALONE.

She bows her head the new-sprung flower to smell,
Comparing it to her Adonis' breath:

And says, within her bosom it shall dwell,
Since he himself is reft from her by death;

She crops the stalk, and in the branch appears
Green dropping sap, which she compares to tears.
Poor flower! (quoth she) this was thy father's guise,
Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire,
For every little grief to wet his eyes,
To grow unto himself was his desire,

And so 'tis thine; but know it is as good
To wither in my breast, as in his blood.

Here was thy father's bed, here is my breast,
Thou art the next of blood, and 'tis thy right;
Lo! in this hollow cradle take thy rest,

My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night;
There shall not be one minute of an hour,
Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love's flow'r.

Thus weary of the world, away she hies,
And yokes her silver doves, by whose swift aid,
Their mistress mounted, through the empty skies
In her light chariot quickly is convey'd ;

Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
Means to immure herself, and not be seen.

Venus and Adonis.-This poem is declared by the author himself to have been his first composition. It was entered in the Stationers' books by Richard Field, April 18, 1593, and again by Harrison, sen. June 23, 1594.

TARQUIN AND LUCRECE

16*

VOL. IX.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

HENRY WRIOTHESLY,

EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TICHFIELD.

Right Honourable,

THE love I dedicate to your lordship is without end

whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of you honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, make it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours, being part in all I have devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty should show greater meantime, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship: to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness.

Your Lordship's in all duty,

WILL. SHAKSPEARE