Page:Shakespeare Collection of Poems.djvu/48

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36
VENUS and ADONIS.
Which the hot tyrant stains, and soon bereaves,
As Caterpillers do the tender leaves.

Love comforteth like Sun-shine after rain:
But lusts effect is tempest after Sun.
Loves gentle spring doth always fresh remain:
Lusts Winter comes, ere Summer half be done.
Love surfets not: lust like a glutton dies.
Love is all truth: lust full of forged lies.

More I could tell, but more I dare not say;
The Text is old, the Orator too green;
Therefore in sadness now I will away,
My face is full of shame, my heart of teen;
Mine ears that to your wanton calls attended,
Do burn themselves for having so offended.

With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace
Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast.
And homeward through the dark lanes runs apace!
Leaves love upon her back deeply distrest.
Look how a bright star shooteth from the sky,
So glides he in the night from Venus eye;

Which after him she darts, as one on shore,
Gazing upon a late embarked friend,
Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,
Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend.
So did the merciless and pitchy night,
Fold in the object that did feed her sight.

Whereat