ALEXIAS:
THE COMPLAINT OF THE FORSAKEN WIFE OF SAINTE ALEXIS.[88]
The First Elegie.
I late the Roman youth's loud prayse and pride,1
Whom long none could obtain, though thousands try'd;
Lo, here am left (alas!) For my lost mate
T' embrace my teares, and kisse an vnkind fate.
Sure in my early woes starres were at strife,5
And try'd to make a widow ere a wife.
Nor can I tell (and this new teares doth breed)
In what strange path, my lord's fair footsteppes bleed.
O knew I where he wander'd, I should see
Some solace in my sorrow's certainty:10
I'd send my woes in words should weep for me,
(Who knowes how powerfull well-writt praires would be.)
Sending's too slow a word; myselfe would fly.
Who knowes my own heart's woes so well as I?
But how shall I steal hence? Alexis thou,15
Ah thou thy self, alas! hast taught me how.
Loue too that leads the way would lend the wings
To bear me harmlesse through the hardest things.
And where Loue lends the wing, and leads the way,
What dangers can there be dare say me nay?20
If I be shipwrack't, Loue shall teach to swimme:
If drown'd, sweet is the death indur'd for him:
The noted sea shall change his name with me,
I'mongst the blest starres, a new name shall be.
And sure where louers make their watry graues,25
The weeping mariner will augment the waues.
For who so hard, but passing by that way
Will take acquaintance of my woes, and say
Here 'twas the Roman maid found a hard fate,
While through the World she sought her wandring mate30
Here perish't she, poor heart; Heauns, be my vowes
As true to me, as she was to her spouse.
O liue, so rare a loue! liue! and in thee
The too frail life of femal constancy.
Farewell; and shine, fair soul, shine there aboue35
Firm in thy crown, as here fast in thy loue.
There thy lost fugitiue th' hast found at last:
Be happy; and for euer hold him fast.
The Second Elegie.
Though all the ioyes I had, fled hence with thee,1
Vnkind! yet are my teares still true to me:
I'm wedded o're again since thou art gone;
Nor couldst thou, cruell, leaue me quite alone.
Alexis' widdow now is Sorrow's wife,5
With him shall I weep out my weary life.
Wellcome, my sad-sweet mate! Now haue I gott
At last a constant Loue, that leaues me not:
Firm he, as thou art false; nor need my cryes
Thus vex the Earth and teare the beauteous skyes.10
For him, alas! n'ere shall I need to be
Troublesom to the world thus as for thee:
For thee I talk to trees; with silent groues
Expostulate my woes and much-wrong'd loues;
Hills and relentlesse rockes, or if there be15
Things that in hardnesse more allude to thee,
To these I talk in teares, and tell my pain,
And answer too for them in teares again.
How oft haue I wept out the weary sun!
My watry hour-glasse hath old Time's outrunne.20
O I am learnèd grown: poor Loue and I
Haue study'd ouer all Astrology;
I'm perfect in Heaun's state; with euery starr
My skillfull greife is grown familiar.
Rise, fairest of those fires; what'ere thou be25
Whose rosy beam shall point my sun to me.
Such as the sacred light that e'rst did bring
The Eastern princes to their infant King,
O rise, pure lamp! and lend thy golden ray
That weary Loue at last may find his way.30