We ever showed ourselves your spouses true,
And ye our husbands kind and honourèd,
Why, at this mournful time, when we may view
The wrath of heaven poured out to our distress,
Are all your proofs of love so scant and few?
We long have known, what now your looks express,
That on the Roman spears ye mean to bound;
Because their cruelty affects you less
Than that fell hunger-plague which rages round;
From out whose lean and clutching hands, I say,