Poesias
Poesias What unapprovèd witness dost thou bear!
Ink would have seemed more black and damnèd here!’
This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,
Big discontent so breaking their contents.
A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh,
Sometime a blusterer that the ruffle knew
Of court, of city, and had let go by
The swiftest hours observèd as they flew,
Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew,
And, privileged by age, desires to know
In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.
So slides he down upon his grainèd 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 promised in the charity of age.
‘Father,’ she says, ‘though in me you behold
The injury of many a blasting hour,
Let it not tell your judgement I am old;
Not age, but sorrow over me hath power.
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.
‘But woe is me, too early I attended