Needs must that sweep away the silly cobweb
Of our still-undone labors, that lays still
Our powers to it, as to the line, the stone,
Not to the stone, the line should be opposed.
We cannot keep our constant course in virtue:
What is alike at all parts? every day
Differs from other, every hour and minute;
I, every thought in our false clock of life
Oft times inverts the whole circumference:
We must be sometimes one, sometimes another.
Our bodies are but thick clouds to our souls,
Through which they cannot shine when they desire.
When all the stars, and even the sun himself,
Must stay the vapors times that he exhales
Before he can make good his beams to us,
O how can we, that are but motes to him,
Wandering at random in his ordered rays,
Disperse our passions fumes, with our weak labors,
That are more thick and black than all earths vapors?  
_Enter Mont[surry]._
_Mont._ Good day, my love! what, up and ready too!  
_Tam._ Both (my dear lord): not all this night made I
Myself unready, or could sleep a wink.  
_Mont._ Alas, what troubled my true love, my peace,
From being at peace within her better self?
Or how could sleep forbear to seize thine eyes,
When he might challenge them as his just prize?  
_Tam._ I am in no power earthly, but in yours.
To what end should I go to bed, my lord,
That wholly missed the comfort of my bed?
Or how should sleep possess my faculties,
Wanting the proper closer of mine eyes?  
_Mont._ Then will I never more sleep night from thee:
All mine own business, all the Kings affairs,
Shall take the day to serve them; every night
I'll ever dedicate to thy delight.  
_Tam._ Nay, good my lord, esteem not my desires
Such doters on their humors that my judgment
Cannot subdue them to your worthier pleasure:
A wife's pleased husband must her object be

 Prev. P 53/498 next