(From England’s Heroical Epistles)
SOMETIMES, to pass the tedious irksome hours,
I climb the top of Woodstock’s mounting tow’rs,
Where in a turret secretly I lie,
To view from far such as do travel by:
Whither, methinks, all cast their eyes at me,
As through the stones my shame did make them see;
And with such hate the harmless walls do view,
As ev’n to death their eyes would me pursue.
The married women curse my hateful life,
Wronging a fair queen and a virtuous wife:
The maidens wish I buried quick may die,
And from each place near my abode to flie.
Well knew’st thou what a monster I would be,
When thou didst build this labyrinth for me,
Whose strange meanders turning ev’ry way,
Be like the course wherein my youth did stray:
Only a clue doth guide me out and in,
But yet still walk I circular in sin.
As in the gallery this other day,
I and my woman past the time away,
’Mongst many pictures which were hanging