Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
The owl shriek’d at thy birth,—an evil sign;
[45] The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
[♦] Dogs howl’d, and hideous tempest shook down trees;
[♦] The raven rook’d her on the chimney’s top,
[♦] And chattering pies in dismal discords sung.
Thy mother felt more than a mother’s pain,
50 And yet brought forth less than a mother’s hope,
[♦] To wit, an indigested and deformed lump,
Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.