Left their round turrets destitute and pale.

They, must’ring to the quiet cabinet

Where their dear governess and lady lies,

Do tell her she is dreadfully beset,

And fright her with confusion of their cries.

She much amazed breaks ope her locked-up eyes,

Who, peeping forth this tumult to behold,

Are by his flaming torch dimmed and controlled.

Imagine her as one in dead of night

From forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking,

That thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite

Whose grim aspect sets every joint a-shaking.

What terror ’tis! But she in worser taking,

From sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view

The sight which makes supposed terror true.

Wrapped and confounded in a thousand fears,

Like to a new-killed bird she trembling lies.

She dares not look, yet, winking, there appears

Quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes.

Such shadows are the weak brain’s forgeries,

Who, angry that the eyes fly from their lights,

In darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights.

His hand that yet remains upon her breast—

Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall—

May feel her heart, poor citizen, distressed,

Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall,

Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.

This moves in him more rage and lesser pity

To make the breach and enter this sweet city.

First like a trumpet doth his tongue begin

To sound a parley to his heartless foe,

Who o’er the white sheet peers her whiter chin,

The reason of this rash alarm to know,

Which he by dumb demeanour seeks to show.

But she with vehement prayers urgeth still

Under what colour he commits this ill.

Thus he replies: ‘The colour in thy face,

That even for anger makes the lily pale

And the red rose blush at her own disgrace,

Shall plead for me and tell my loving tale.

Under that colour am I come to scale

Thy never-conquered fort. The fault is thine,

For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine.

‘Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide:

Thy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night,

Where thou with patience must my will abide,

My will that marks thee for my earth’s delight,

Which I to conquer sought with all my might.

But as reproof and reason beat it dead,

By thy bright beauty was it newly bred.

‘I see what crosses my attempt will bring,

I know what thorns the growing rose defends;

I think the honey guarded with a sting;

All this beforehand counsel comprehends.

But will is deaf, and hears no heedful friends.

Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty,

And dotes on what he looks, ’gainst law or duty.

‘I have debated even in my soul

What wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall breed;

But nothing can affection’s course control,

Or stop the headlong fury of his speed.

I know repentant tears ensue the deed,

Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity,

Yet strive I to embrace mine infamy.’

This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,

Which like a falcon tow’ring in the skies

Coucheth the fowl below with his wings’ shade

Whose crooked beak threats, if he mount he dies.

So under his insulting falchion lies

Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells

With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcons’ bells.

‘Lucrece,’ quoth he, ‘this night I must enjoy thee.

If thou deny, then force must work my way,

For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee.

That done, some worthless slave of thine I’ll slay

To kill thine honour with thy life’s decay;

And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him,

Swearing I slew him seeing thee embrace him.

‘So thy surviving husband shall remain

The scornful mark of every open eye,

Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain,

Thy issue blurred with nameless bastardy,

And thou, the author of their obloquy,

Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rhymes

And sung by children in succeeding times.

‘But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend.

The fault unknown is as a thought unacted.

A little harm done to a great good end

For lawful policy remains enacted.

The poisonous simple sometime is compacted

In a pure compound; being so applied,

His venom in effect is purified.

‘Then for thy husband and thy children’s sake

Tender my suit; bequeath not to their lot

The shame that from them no device can take,

The blemish that will never be forgot,

Worse than a slavish wipe or birth-hour’s blot;

For marks descried in men’s nativity

Are nature’s faults, not their own infamy.’

Here with a cockatrice’ dead-killing eye

He rouseth up himself, and makes a pause,

While she, the picture of pure piety,

Like a white hind under the gripe’s sharp claws,

Pleads in a wilderness where are no laws

To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,

Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.

But when a black-faced cloud the world doth threat,

In his dim mist th‘aspiring mountains hiding,

From earth’s dark womb some gentle gust doth get