Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/221

 154 x

Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now; Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross. Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, And do not drop in for an after loss: Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow, Come in the rearward of a conquered woe; Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, To linger out a purposed overthrow. If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, When other petty griefs have done their spite, But in the onset come: so shall I taste At first the very worst of fortune's might; And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, Compared with loss of thee will not seem so!

155. xi

They that have power to hurt and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do show, Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow— They rightly do inherit heaven's graces, And husband nature's riches from expense; They are the Lords and owners of their faces, Others, but stewards of their excellence. The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, Though to itself it only live and die; But if that flower with base infection meet, The basest weed outbraves his dignity: For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.