Page:Shakespeare Collection of Poems.djvu/122

Her grief, but not her griefes true quality,
She dares not thereof make discovery,
Lest he should hold it her own grosse abuse,
Ere she with bloud had stain'd her stain'd excuse.

Besides, the life and feeling of her passion
She hoords to spend, when he is by to hear her,
When sighs and grones, and teares may grace the fashion
Of her disgrace, the better so to clear her
From that suspicion which the world my might bear her.
To shun this blot she would not blot the letter
With words, till action might become them better.

To see sad sights moves more than hear them told:
For then the eye interprets to the ear
The heavy motion that it doth be hold:
When every part a part of woe doth bear,
'Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear.
Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,
And sorrow ebs being blown with wind of words.

Her letter now is sealed, and on it writ,
At Ardea to my Lord with more than haste:
The Post attends, and she delivers it,
Charging the sowre-fac'd groom to hie as fast
As lagging foules before the Northern blast.
Speed, more than speed, but dull and slow she deems,
Extremity full urgeth such extremes.

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