This is a picture, of which the colouring, but too often overcharged in every other part of the poem, may be pronounced chaste and correct.
A simple and unaffected flow of thought, expressed in diction of equal purity and plainness, are essential requisites towards the production of the pathetic, either in poetry or prose; and, unfortunately, in the Rape of Lucrece, these excellences, especially in their combined state, are of very rare occurrence. We are not, however, totally destitute of passages which, by their tenderness and simplicity, appeal to the heart. Thus the complete wretchedness of Lucretia is powerfully and simply painted in the following lines:—
"The little birds that tune their morning's joy,
Make her moans mad with their sweet melody.
For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy;
Sad souls are slain in merry company;
Grief best is pleas'd with grief's society:
True sorrow then is feelingly suffic'd,
When with like semblance it is sympathiz'd."
She, accordingly, invokes the melancholy nightingale, and invites her, from similarity of fate, to be her companion in distress.—