Page:Shakespeare Collection of Poems.djvu/139

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The Rape of Lucrece.
127
And ever since as pitying Lucrece woes,
Corrupted bloud some watry token showes,
And bloud untainted still doth red abide,
Blushing at that which is so putrify'd.

Daughter, dear daughter, old Lucretius cries,
That life was mine, which thou hast here deprived;
If in the child the fathers image lies,
Where shall I live, now Lucrece is unlived?
Thou wast not to this end from me derived.
If children predecease Progenitours,
We are their off-spring, and they none of ours.

Poor broken glasse, I often did behold
In thy sweet semblance, my old age new born,
But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and old,
Shews me a barebon'd Death by time out-worn,
O from my cheeks my image thou hast torn,
And shiver'd all the beauty of my glasse,
That I no more can see what once I was.

O time, cease thou thy course, and hast no longer,
If thou surcease to be, that should survive:
Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger,
And leave the foultring feeble soules alive?
The old Bees die, the young possess their hive,
Then live sweet Lucrece, live again, and see
Thy father die, and not thy father thee.

By