With her one maid, bearing the horrid head
    In haste, and thanks God that so well she sped. 
    The next is Sichem, he who found his death
    In circumcision; his father hath
    Like mischief felt; the city all did prove
    The same effect of his rash violent love. 
    You see Ahasuerus how well he bears
    His loss; a new love soon expels his cares;
    This cure in this disease doth seldom fail,
    One nail best driveth out another nail. 
    If you would see love mingled oft with hate,
    Bitter with sweet, behold fierce Herod’s state,
    Beset with love and cruelty at once: 
    Enraged at first, then late his fault bemoans,
    And Mariamne calls; those three fair dames
    (Who in the list of captives write their names)
    Procris, Deidamia, Artemisia were
    All good, the other three as wicked are—­
    Semiramis, Byblis, and Myrrha named,
    Who of their crooked ways are now ashamed
    Here be the erring knights in ancient scrolls,
    Lancelot, Tristram, and the vulgar souls
    That wait on these; Guenever, and the fair
    Isond, with other lovers; and the pair
    Who, as they walk together, seem to plain,
    Their just, but cruel fate, by one hand slain.” 
    Thus he discoursed:  and as a man that fears
    Approaching harm, when he a trumpet hears,
    Starts at the blow ere touch’d, my frighted blood
    Retired:  as one raised from his tomb I stood;
    When by my side I spied a lovely maid,
    (No turtle ever purer whiteness had!)
    And straight was caught (who lately swore I would
    Defend me from a man at arms), nor could
    Resist the wounds of words with motion graced: 
    The image yet is in my fancy placed. 
    My friend was willing to increase my woe,
    And smiling whisper’d,—­“You alone may go
    Confer with whom you please, for now we are
    All stained with one crime.”  My sullen care
    Was like to theirs, who are more grieved to know
    Another’s happiness than their own woe;
    For seeing her, who had enthrall’d my mind,
    Live free in peace, and no disturbance find: 
    And seeing that I knew my hurt too late. 
    And that her beauty was my dying fate: 
    Love, jealousy, and envy held my sight
    So fix’d on that fair face, no other light
    I could behold; like one who in the rage
    Of sickness greedily his thirst would ’suage
    With hurtful drink, which doth his palate please,
    Thus (blind and deaf t’ all other joys are ease)
    So many doubtful ways I follow’d her,
    The memory still shakes my soul with fear. 
    Since when mine eyes are moist, and view the ground,
    My heart is heavy, and my steps have found
    A solitary dwelling ’mongst the woods,
    I stray o’er rocks and fountains, hills and floods: 
    Since when such store my scatter’d