cannot be,” quoth she, “that so much guile”— She would have said “can lurk in such a look.” But Tarquin’s shape came in her mind the while, And from her tongue “can lurk” from “cannot” took. “It cannot be” she in that sense forsook, And turned it thus: “It cannot be, I find, But such a face should bear a wicked mind. 

 “For even as subtle Sinon here is painted, So sober-sad, so weary, and so mild, As if with grief or travail he had fainted, To me came Tarquin armed too, beguiled With outward honesty, but yet defiled With inward vice. As Priam him did cherish, So did I Tarquin; so my Troy did perish. 

 “Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes, To see those borrowed tears that Sinon sheds! Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise? For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds. His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds; Those round clear pearls of his that move thy pity, Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city. 

 “Such devils steal effects from lightless hell, For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold, And in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell. These contraries such unity do hold, Only to flatter fools and make them bold; So Priam’s trust false Sinon’s tears doth flatter, That he finds means to burn his Troy with water.” 

 Here, all enraged, such passion her assails, That patience is quite beaten from her breast. She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails, Comparing him to that unhappy guest Whose deed hath made herself herself detest. At last she smilingly with this gives o’er; “Fool, fool!” quoth she, “his wounds will not be sore.” 

 Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow, And time doth weary time with her complaining. She looks for night, and then she longs for morrow, And both she thinks too long with her remaining. Short time seems long in sorrow’s sharp sustaining. Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps, And they that watch see time how slow it creeps. 

 Which all this time hath overslipped her thought, That she with painted images hath spent, Being from the feeling of her own grief brought By deep surmise of others’ detriment, Losing her woes in shows of discontent. It easeth some, though none it ever cured, To think their dolour others have endured. 

 But now the mindful messenger, come back, Brings home his lord and other company; Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black, And round about her tear-distained eye Blue circles streamed, like rainbows in the sky. These water-galls in her dim element Foretell new storms to those already 

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