From off a hill whose concave womb re-worded_A plaintful story from a sistering vale,_My spirits to 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 carcase 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._
Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,_Which on it had conceited characters,_Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine_That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,_And often reading what contents it bears;_As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,_In clamours of all size, both high and low.
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