Similes from Bird-Capture 
The King in Hamlet, torn with com- 
punction for his crime, exclaims 
O wretched state! O bosom black as death ! 
O limed soul, that struggling to be free 
Art more engaged,} 
The supposed experience of a bird that 
has once been nearly caught is transferred 
by the poet to the human heart. King 
Henry VI. laments his fate in this wise : 
The bird that hath been limed in a bush, 
With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush ; 
And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird, 
Have now the fatal object in my eye 
Where my poor young was limed, was caught and kill’d.? 
- On the other hand, the innocent assur- 
ance of a blameless soul is likened to that 
of a bird that has never known the 
treacherous arts of the fowler. 
For unstain’d thoughts do seldom dream on evil ; 
Birds never limed no secret bushes fear. 
We find reference to “ poor birds de- 
ceived with painted grapes,” and to “‘poor 
1 Hamlet, 111. ii. 67. 23 Henry VI. v. vi. 13. 
3 Lucrece, 87. 
II 
