Page:Shakespeare Collection of Poems.djvu/61

Since thou art dead, loe here I prophesy,
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:
It shall be waited on with jealousy,
Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end,
Ne're settled equally, but high or low;
That all loves pleasures shall not match his woe.

It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud,
And shall be blasted in a breathing while,
The bottom poison, and the top ore-straw'd
With sweets, that shall the sharpest sight beguile.
The strongest body shall it make most weak,
Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak.

It shall be sparing, and too full of riot,
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;
The staring Ruffian shall it keep in quiet,
Pluck down the rich, inrich the poor with treasures,
It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,
Make the young old, the old become a child.

It shall suspect, where is no cause of fear;
It shall not fear, where it should most mistrust;
It shall be merciful, and too severe,
And most deceiving, when it seems most just:
Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,
Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.

It shall be cause of war, and dire events,
And set dissension 'twixt the Son and Sire,

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