Page:Shakespeare Collection of Poems.djvu/138

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126
The Rape of Lucrece.
Even here she sheath'd in her harmlesse brest
A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed,
That blow did bayle it from the deep unrest
Of that polluted Prison where it breathed,
Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeathed
Her winged spright, and through her Wounds doth flie
Lifes lasting date from canceld destiny.

Stone-still, astonisht with this deadly deed,
Stood Colatine and all his Lordly crew.
Till Lucrece father that beholds her bleed,
Himself, on her self-slaughtered body threw
And from the purple fountain Brutus drew,
The murderous knife, and as it left the place,
Her blood in poor revenge, held it in chase.

And bubbling from her brest, it doth divide
In two slow rivers, that the crimson bloud
Circles her body in on every side,
Who like a late sackt Island vastly stood
Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood.
Some of her bloud, still pure and red remaind,
And some lookt black, and that false Tarquin staind.

About the mourning and congealed face
Of that black bloud, a watry rigol goes,
Which seemes to weep upon the tainted place:

And