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O opportunity! thy guilt is great;

'Tis thou that execut'st the traitor's treason,
Thou sett'st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
Whoever plots the sin, thou point'st the season;
"Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason:
And in thy shady cell, where none may spy her,
Sits sin to seize the souls that wander by her.

Thou mak'st. the vestal violate her oath,
Thou blow'st the fire when temperance is thaw'd,
Thou smother'st honesty, thou murder'st troth,
Thou foul abettor, thou notorious bawd!
Thou plantest scandal, and displacest laud.

Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief!
Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief.

Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,
Thy private feasting to a publick fast,.
Thy smothering titles to a ragged name,
Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste;
Thy violent vanities can never last,.

How comes it, then, vile opportunity,
Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee.

When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend,
And bring him where his suit may be obtain❜d?
When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end?
Or free that soul, which wretchedness hath chain'd?
Give physick to the sick, ease to the pain'd?.

The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee,
But they ne'er meet with opportunity.

The patient dies, while the physician sleeps ;
The orphan pines, while the oppressor feeds;
Justice is feasting, while the widow weeps;
Advice is sporting, while infection breeds;
Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds.

Wrath, envy, treason, rape and murder rages,
Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.

When truth and virtue have to do with thee,
A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid;
They buy thy help: but sin ne'er gives a fee,
He gratis comes, and thou art well apaid,

As well to hear as grant what he hath said.
My Colatine would else have come to me,
When Tarquin did, but he was staid by thee.

Guilty thou art of murder and of theft;
Guilty of perjury and subornation ;
Guilty of treason, forgery and shift;
Guilty of incest, that abomination :
An accessary by thine inclination

To all sins past, and all that are to come,
From the creation to the general doom.

Mishapen time, copesmate of ugly night;
Swift, subtle post, carrier of grisly care;
Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,

Base watch of woes, sin's pack-horse, virtue's snare;
Thou nursest all, and murder'st all that are.
O hear me then, injurious shifting time!
Be guilty of my death, since of my crime.

Why hath thy servant opportunity,
Betrayed the hours thou gav'st me to repose?
Cancell'd my fortunes, and inchained me
To endless date of never-ending woes?
Time's office is to find the hate of foes,
To eat up error by opinion bred,
Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed.

Time's glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light,
To stamp the seal of time on aged things,
To wake the morn, and sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger, till he render right,
To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,
And smear with dust their glittering golden towers.

To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,

To blot old books, and alter their contents,

To pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings;
To dry the old oak's sap, and cherish springs,
To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,
And turn the giddy round of fortune's wheel.

To shew the beldame daughters of her daughter
To make a child a man, the man a child;
To slay the tiger, that doth live by slaughter;
To tame the unicorn and lion wild;

To mock the subtle in themselves beguil'd;

To cheer the ploughman with increased crops,
And waste huge stones with little water-drops.

Why work'st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage,
Unless thou could'st return to make amends?
One poor retiring minute in an age,

Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends,
Lending him wit that to bad debtors lends.

O, this dread night! would'st thou one hour come back,
I could prevent this storm, and shun this wrack.

Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity,

With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight;
Devise extremes beyond extremity,

To make him curse this cursed crimeful night;
Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright,
And the dire thought of his committed evil
Shape every bush a hideous, shapeless devil.

Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances;
Afflict him in his bed with bed-rid groans;
Let there bechance him pitiful mischances,
To make him moan, but pity not his moans:
Stone him with harden'd hearts, harder than stones,
And let mild women to him lose their mildness,
Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness.

Let him have time to tear his curled hair;
Let him have time against himself to rave;
Let him have time of time's help to despair;
Let him have time to live a loathed slave;
Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave,

And time to see one, that by alms does live,
Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.

Let him have time to see his friends his foes,
And merry fools to mock at him resort;
Let him have time to mark how slow time goes
In time of sorrow, and how swift and short

His time of folly, and his time of sport ;
And ever let his unrecalling time

Have time to wail th' abusing of his time.

O time! thou tutor both to good and bad!
Teach me to curse him, that thou taught'st this ill ;
At his own shadow let the thief run mad,
Himself, himself seek every hour to kill;

Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill! For who so base would such an office have,

As slanderous death's-man to so base a slave ?

The baser is he, coming from a king,
To shame his hope with deeds degenerate;
The mightier man, the mightier is the thing,
That makes him honoured, or begets him hate:
For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.

The moon being clouded presently is mist,
But little stars may hide them when they list.

The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,
And unperceiv'd fly with the filth away;
But if the like the snow-white swan desire,
The stain upon his silver down will stay.
Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day.
Gnats are unnoted wheresoe'er they fly,
But eagles gaz'd upon with every eye.

;

O idle words! servants to shallow fools.
Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators;
Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools;
Debate where leisure serves, with dull debators:
To trembling clients be their mediators.

For me I force not argument a straw,
Since that my case is past all help of law.

In vain I rail at opportunity,

At time, at Tarquin, and unsearchful night!
In vain I cavil with mine infamy,

In vain I spurn at my confirm'd despight;
This helpless smoke of words doth me no right,
The remedy indeed to do me good,

Is to let forth my foul defiled blood.

Poor hand, why quiver'st thou at this decree
Honour thyself, to rid me of this shame ;
For if I die, thy honour lives in thee;
But if I live, thou liv'st in my defame;
Since thou could'st not defend thy royal dame,
And wast afraid to scratch her wicked foe,
Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.

This said, from her betumbled couch she starts,
To find some desperate instrument of death,
But this no slaughter-house, no tool imparts,
To make more vent for passing of her breath,
Which thronging thro' her lips so vanisheth,

As smoke from Etna, that in air consumes,
Or that which from discharged cannon fumes.
In vain (quoth she) I live, and seek in vain
Some happy mean to end a hapless life;
I fear'd by Tarquin's fauchion to be slain,
Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife!
But when I fear'd, I was a loyal wife;

So am I now; O no! that cannot be,
Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.

O that is gone for which I sought to live,
And therefore now I need not fear to die;
To clear this spot by death, at least, I give
A badge of fame to slander's livery,
A dying life to living infamy!

Poor helpless help, the treasure stol'n awày,
To burn the guiltless casket where it lay.

Well, well, dear Colatine, thou shalt not know
The stained taste of violated troth,

I will not wrong thy true affection so,
To flatter thee with an infringed oath ;
This bastard grass shall never come to growth;
He shall not boast, who did thy stock pollute,
That thou art doating father of his fruit.

Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought,
Nor laugh with his companions at thy state;
But thou shalt know thy interest was not bought
Basely with gold, but stol'n from forth thy gate.

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