From off a hill whose concave womb reworded A plaintful story from a sist’ring vale, My spirits t’attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid to list the sad-tun’d tale; Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale, Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain, Storming her world with sorrow’s wind and rain. Upon her head a platted hive of straw, Which fortified her visage from the sun, Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw The carcass of a beauty spent and done; Time had not scythed all that youth begun, Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven’s fell rage Some beauty peeped through lattice of sear’d age.…
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