His day’s hot task hath ended in the west.

The owl, night’s herald, shrieks ’tis very late;

The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,

And coal-black clouds, that shadow heaven’s light,

Do summon us to part and bid good night.

‘Now let me say good night, and so say you.

If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.’

‘Good night,’ quoth she; and ere he says adieu

The honey fee of parting tendered is.

Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace.

Incorporate then they seem; face grows to face,

Till breathless he disjoined, and backward drew

The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,

Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,

Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drought.

He with her plenty pressed, she faint with dearth,

Their lips together glued, fall to the earth.

Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey,

And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth.

Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,

Paying what ransom the insulter willeth,

Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high

That she will draw his lips’ rich treasure dry,

And, having felt the sweetness of the spoil,

With blindfold fury she begins to forage.

Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,

And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage,

Planting oblivion, beating reason back,

Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honour’s wrack.

Hot, faint, and weary with her hard embracing,

Like a wild bird being tamed with too much handling,

Or as the fleet-foot roe that’s tired with chasing,

Or like the froward infant stilled with dandling,

He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,

While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.

What wax so frozen but dissolves with temp‘ring

And yields at last to every light impression?

Things out of hope are compassed oft with vent’ring,

Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission.

Affection faints not, like a pale-faced coward,

But then woos best when most his choice is froward.

When he did frown, O, had she then gave over,

Such nectar from his lips she had not sucked.

Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover.

What though the rose have prickles, yet ’tis plucked!

Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,

Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last.

For pity now she can no more detain him.

The poor fool prays her that he may depart.

She is resolved no longer to restrain him,

Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,

The which, by Cupid’s bow she doth protest,

He carries thence encagèd in his breast.

‘Sweet boy,’ she says, ‘this night I’ll waste in sorrow,

For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.

Tell me, love’s master, shall we meet tomorrow?

Say, shall we, shall we? Wilt thou make the match?’

He tells her no, tomorrow he intends

To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.

‘The boar!’ quoth she; whereat a sudden pale,

Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,

Usurps her cheek. She trembles at his tale,

And on his neck her yoking arms she throws.

She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck.

He on her belly falls, she on her back.

Now is she in the very lists of love,

Her champion mounted for the hot encounter.

All is imaginary she doth prove.

He will not manage her, although he mount her,

That worse than Tantalus’ is her annoy,

To clip Elysium, and to lack her joy.

Even so poor birds, deceived with painted grapes,

Do surfeit by the eye, and pine the maw;

Even so she languisheth in her mishaps

As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.

The warm effects which she in him finds missing

She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.

But all in vain, good queen ! It will not be.

She hath assayed as much as may be proved;

Her pleading hath deserved a greater fee:

She’s Love; she loves; and yet she is not loved.

‘Fie, fie,’ he says, ‘you crush me. Let me go.

You have no reason to withhold me so.’

‘Thou hadst been gone,’ quoth she, ‘sweet boy, ere

this,

But that thou told’st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.

O, be advised; thou know’st not what it is

With javelin’s point a churlish swine to gore,

Whose tushes, never sheathed, he whetteth still,

Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.

‘On his bow-back he hath a battle set

Of bristly pikes that ever threat his foes.

His eyes like glow-worms shine; when he doth fret

His snout digs sepulchres where’er he goes.

Being moved, he strikes, whate’er is in his way,

And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.

‘His brawny sides with hairy bristles armed

Are better proof than thy spear’s point can enter.

His short thick neck cannot be easily harmed.

Being ireful, on the lion he will venture.

The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,

As fearful of him, part; through whom he rushes.

‘Alas, he naught esteems that face of thine,

To which love’s eyes pays tributary gazes,

Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,

Whose full perfection all the world amazes;

But having thee at vantage—wondrous dread!—

Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.