Classic Poem

Hark news, O envy, thou shalt hear descried
My Julia; who as yet was ne'er envied.
To vomit gall in slander, swell her veins
With calumny, that hell itself disdains,
Is her continual practice; does her best,
To tear opinion even out of the breast
Of dearest friends, and (which is worse than vilde)
Sticks jealousy in wedlock; her own child
Scapes not the showers of envy; to repeat
The monstrous fashions, how, were alive to eat
Dear reputation. Would to God she were
But half so loth to act vice, as to hear
My mild reproof. Lived Mantuan now again,
That female-mastix, to limn with his pen
This she chimera, that hath eyes of fire,
Burning with anger, anger feeds desire,
Tongued like the night-crow, whose ill-boding cries
Give out for nothing but new injuries,
Her breath like to the juice in Tenarus
That blasts the springs, though ne'er so prosperous,
Her hands, I know not how, used more to spill
The food of others, than herself to fill.
But oh her mind, that Orcus, which includes
Legions of mischiefs, countless multitudes
Of formless curses, projects unmade up,
Abuses yet unfashioned, thoughts corrupt,
Misshapen cavils, palpable untroths,
Inevitable errors, self-accusing loaths:
These, like those atoms swarming in the sun,
Throng in her bosom for creation.
I blush to give her half her due; yet say,
No poison's half so bad as Julia.