“What! canst thou talk?” quoth she, “hast thou a tongue?
O would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing; 428
Thy mermaid’s voice hath done me double wrong;
I had my load before, now press’d with bearing:
Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh-sounding,
Ear’s deep sweet music, and heart’s deep sore wounding.
“Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love 433
That inward beauty and invisible;
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move
Each part in me that were but sensible: 436
Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,
Yet should I be in love by touching thee.
“Say that the sense of feeling were bereft me,
And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch, 440
And nothing but the very smell were left me,
Yet would my love to thee be still as much;
For from the stillitory of thy face excelling
Comes breath perfum’d, that breedeth love by smelling.
“But oh what banquet wert thou to the taste, 445
Being nurse and feeder of the other four;
Would they not wish the feast might ever last,
And bid suspicion double-lock the door,
Lest jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,
Should by his stealing in disturb the feast?” 448
Once more the ruby-colour’d portal open’d,
Which to his speech did honey passage yield, 452
Like a red morn that ever yet betoken’d
Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds. 456
This ill presage advisedly she marketh:
Even as the wind is hush’d before it raineth,
Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,
Or as the berry breaks before it staineth, 460
Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,
His meaning struck her ere his words begun.
And at his look she flatly falleth down
For looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth; 464
A smile recures the wounding of a frown;
But blessed bankrout, that by love so thriveth!
The silly boy, believing she is dead,
Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red. 468
And all amaz’d brake off his late intent,
For sharply he did think to reprehend her,
Which cunning love did wittily prevent:
Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her! 472
For on the grass she lies as she were slain,
Till his breath breatheth life in her again.
He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,
He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard, 476
He chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks
To mend the hurt that his unkindness marr’d:
He kisses her; and she, by her good will,
Will never rise, so he will kiss her still. 480
The night of sorrow now is turn’d to day:
Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,
Like the fair sun when in his fresh array
He cheers the morn, and all the world relieveth: 484
And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,
So is her face illumin’d with her eye.