Monday, December 3, 2018

SAINT PETERS Complaynt - by Robert Southwell: 253-288/792

O hatefull fire (ah that I ever saw it)
Too hard my hart was frozen for thy force,
Farre hotter flames it did require to thawe it, [255]
Thy hell resembling heate did frize it worse.
O that I rather had congeal'd to yse:
Then bought thy warm'th at such a damning price.

O wakeful bird, proclaimer of the day,
Whose piercing note doth daunt the Lions rage: [260]
Thy crowing did myself to me bewray,
My frights, and brutish heates it did aswuage.
But o, in this alone, unhappie cocke:
That thou to count my foyles wert made the clocke.

O bird, the just rebuker of my crime, [265]
The faithful waker of my sleeping feares:
Be now the daylie clocke to strike the time,
When stinted eyes shall pay their task of teares.
Upbraide mine eares with thine accusing crow:
To make me rew that first it made me know. [270]

O mild revenger of aspiring pride,
Thou canst dismount high thoughtes to low effects:
Thou mad'st a cocke me for my fault to chide,
My lofty boastes this lowly bird correctes.
Well might a cocke correct me with a crow: [275]
Whome hennish cackling first did over-throw.

Weake weapons did Golias fumes abate,
Whose storming rage did thunder threats in vaine:
His body huge, harnest with massie plate,
Yet Davids stone brought death into his braine. [280]
With staffe and sling as to a dog he came:
And with contempt did boasting fury tame.

Yet David had with Beare and Lyon fought,
His skillful might excused Golias foyle:
The death is easde that worthy hand hath wrought, [285]
Some honor lives in honorable spoyle.
But I on whome all infamies must light:
Was hisd to death with wordes of womans spite.

Notes

[l261] bewray: To accuse, malign, speak evil of. Obsolete. To expose (a person), by divulging his secrets, or telling something that one knows to his discredit or harm.
[73] And after a little while they came that stood by, and said to Peter: Surely thou also art one of them; for even thy speech doth discover thee. [74] Then he began to curse and to swear that he knew not the man. And immediately the cock crew. [75] And Peter remembered the word of Jesus which he had said: Before the cock crow, thou wilt deny me thrice. And going forth, he wept bitterly. [Matthew 26]
[l264] foyles: foil - A repulse,A disgrace, stigma. Obsolete.

[l270] that: that which, what.

[l277] Golias: Goliath. See 1 Kings:
[50] And David prevailed over the Philistine, with a sling and a stone, and he struck, and slew the Philistine. And as David had no sword in his hand.


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