When by thy scorne, O murdresse, I am dead,
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from mee,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, fain’d vestall, in worse armes shall see;
Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke,
And he,whose thou art then, being tyr’d before,
Will, if thou stirre, or pinch to wake him, thinke
Thou call’st for more,
And in false sleepe will from thee shrinke,
And then poore Aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bath’d in a cold quicksilver swear wilt lye
A veryer ghost than I;
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I’had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from mee,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, fain’d vestall, in worse armes shall see;
Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke,
And he,whose thou art then, being tyr’d before,
Will, if thou stirre, or pinch to wake him, thinke
Thou call’st for more,
And in false sleepe will from thee shrinke,
And then poore Aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bath’d in a cold quicksilver swear wilt lye
A veryer ghost than I;
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I’had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.
Solicitation – pleading
Taper – candle
Quicksilver – mercury
Aspen – a pale tree
Overall explanation
This poem explores the emotions of a jilted lover, rejected for someone who, in the eyes of the writer, is obviously inferior. For convenience, I will refer to the “I” of the poem as “he” and the subject as “she”.
Although many poems have been written about rejection, most of them end with the lover pleading with the loved to accept him again. However, in this poem, that idea has been turned upside down – by the end he is not pleading to be welcomed back into the arms of his beloved, but is in fact gloating – she made a bad decision, and now she has to live with it!