Classic Poem

For as with hanging head I have beheld
A widow vine stand in a naked field,
Unhusbanded, neglected, all forlorn,
Brows'd on by deer, by cattle cropp'd and torn;
Unpropp'd, unsuccoured by stake or tree
From wreakful storms' impetuous tyranny,
When, had a willing hand lent kind redress,
Her pregnant bunches might from out the press
Have sent a liquor both for taste and show
No less divine than those of Malligo:
Such was this wight, and such she might have been.
She both th' extremes hath felt of Fortune's teen,
For never have we heard from times of yore,
One sometime envied and now pitied more.
Her object, as her state, is low as earth;
Privation her companion; thoughts of mirth
Irksome; and in one self-same circle turning,
With sudden sports brought to a house of mourning,
Of others' good her best belief is still
And constant to her own in nought but ill.
The only enemy and friend she knows
Is Death, who, though defers, must end her woes;
Her contemplation frightful as the night;
She never looks on any living wight
Without comparison; and as the day
Gives us, but takes the glowworm's light away:
So the least ray of bliss on others thrown
Deprives and blinds all knowledge of her own
Her comfort is (if for her any be)
That none can show more cause of grief than she.
Yet somewhat she of adverse Fate hath won,
Who had undone her were she not undone.
For those that on the sea of greatness ride
Far from the quiet shore, and where the tide
In ebbs and floods is guess'd, not truly known;
Expert of all estates except their own;
Keeping their station at the helm of State
Not by their virtues but auspicious fate;
Subject to calms of favour, storms of rage,
Their actions noted as the common stage;
Who, like a man born blind that cannot be
By demonstration shown what 'tis to see,
Live still in ignorance of what they want,
Till misery become the adamant,
And touch them for that point, to which with speed
None comes so sure as by the hand of Need.
A mirror strange she in her right hand bore,
By which her friends from flatterers heretofore
She could distinguish well; and by her side,
As in her full of happiness, untied
Unforc'd and uncompell'd did sadly go,
As if partaker of his mistress' woe,
A loving spaniel, from whose rugged back,
The only thing but death she moans to lack,
She plucks the hair, and working them in pleats
Furthers the suit which modesty entreats.
Men call her Athliot: who cannot be
More wretched made by infelicity,
Unless she here had an immortal breath,
Or living thus, liv'd timorous of death.
Out of her lowly and forsaken dell
She running came, and cried to Philocel:
Help! help! kind shepherd, help! see yonder, where
A lovely lady hung up by the hair
Struggles, but mildly struggles, with the Fates,
Whose thread of life, spun to a thread that mates
Dame Nature's in her hair, stays them to wonder,
While too fine twisting makes it break in sunder.
So shrinks the rose that with the flames doth meet;
So gently bows the virgin parchment sheet;
So roll the waves up and fall out again,
As all her beauteous parts, and all in vain.
Far, far, above my help or hope in trying,
Unknown, and so more miserably dying,
Smoth'ring her torments in her panting breast,
She meekly waits the time of her long rest.
Hasten! O hasten then! kind shepherd, haste.
He went with her, and Cælia, that had grac'd
Him past the world besides, seeing the way
He had to go, not far, rests on the lay.
'Twas near the place where Pan's transformed love
Her gilded leaves display'd, and boldly strove
For lusire with the sun: a sacred tree,
Pal'd round and kept from violation free:
Whose smallest spray rent off we never prize
At less than life. Here, though her heavenly eyes
From him she lov'd could scarce afford a sight,
As if for him they only had their light,
Those kind and brighter stars were known to err
And to all misery betrayed her.
For turning them aside, she (hapless) spies
The holy tree, and (as all novelties
In tempting women have small labour lost
Whether for value nought, or of more cost,)
Led by the hand of uncontroll'd desire
She rose, and thither went. A wrested briar
Only kept close the gate which led into it,
(Easy for any all times to undo it,
That with a pious hand hung on the tree
Garlands or raptures of sweet poesy,)
Which by her opened, with unweeting hand
A little spray she pluck'd, whose rich leaves fann'd
And chatter'd with the air, as who should say:
Do not for once, O do not this bewray!
Nor give sound to a tongue for that intent!
“Who ignorantly sins, dies innocent.”