To a Lady, LVI

A lamb before his shearers dumb! I heard no sound or murmur come, Though, but to look, mine eyes did ache, To see the very gibbet shake, And know it was in agony The Lord himself endur’d for me. Methought on me, the tortur’d eye Fell meek, and so forgivingly! But Oh, the worst reproach it seem’d, To see how merciful it beam’d; So like the look that broke, of old, The heart that could no longer hold, But burst to bitter tears abhorr’d, Of him, that had denied his Lord.