Page:Shakespeare Collection of Poems.djvu/98

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86
The Rape of Lucrece.
Look as the ful-fed hound or gorged Hawke,
Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight,
Make slow pursuit, or altogether bauke
The prey wherein by Nature they delight:
So surfet-taking Tarquin fares this night.
His taste delicious, in digestion sowring,
Devoures his will, that liv'd by foule devouring.

O deeper sin than bottomless conceit
Can comprehend in still imagination!
Drunken desire must vomit his receit,
Ere he can see his own abomination.
While lust is in his pride, no exclamation
Can curbe his heat, or rein his rash desire,
Till like a jade, self-will himself doth tire.

And then with lank and lean discolour'd cheeke,
With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace,
Feeble desire all recreant, poor and meek,
Like to a bankrout begger wailes his case:
The flesh being proud, desire doth fight with grace,
For there it revels, and when that decays,
The guilty rebel for remission prays.

So fares it with this fault-full Lord of Rome,
Who this accomplishment so hotly chased:
For now against himself he sounds this doome,
That thro' the length of time he stands disgraced,
Besides, his Souls fair temple is defaced:

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