The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Volume 3

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G. Bell and Sons & A.H. Bullen, 1908 - English drama

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Page 16 - A tragi-comedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near to it, which is enough to make it no comedy...
Page 34 - I sit by and sing, Or gather rushes to make many a ring For thy long fingers ; tell thee tales of love, How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes She took eternal fire that never dies ; How she...
Page 29 - A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes Their stolen children, so to make them free From dying flesh and dull mortality : By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn, And given away his freedom, many a troth Been plight, which neither envy nor old time Could ever break, with many a chaste kiss given, In hope of coming happiness...
Page 41 - Oh, you sons of earth, You only brood, unto whose happy birth Virtue was given, holding more of nature Than man, her first-born and most perfect creature, Let me adore you ! you, that only can Help or kill nature, drawing out that span Of life and breath even to the end of time ; You, that these hands did crop long before prime 10 Of day, give me your names, and, next, your hidden power.
Page 25 - My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair, No goblin, wood-god, fairy, elf, or fiend, Satyr, or other power that haunts the groves, Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion Draw me to wander after idle fires, Or voices calling me in dead of night To make me follow, and so tole me on Through mire and standing pools, to find my ruin.
Page 25 - Yet I have heard (my mother told it me) And now I do believe it, if I keep My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste., and fair ; No goblin, wood-god, fairy, elf, or fiend, Satyr, or other power that haunts the groves, Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion Draw me to wander after idle fires...
Page 85 - SEE the day begins to break, And the light shoots like a streak Of subtle fire ; the wind blows cold While the morning doth unfold ; Now the birds begin to rouse, And the squirrel from the boughs Leaps, to get him nuts and fruit, The early lark, that erst was mute, Carols to the rising day Many a note and many a lay.
Page 61 - To walk this grove about, whilst he, In a corner of the wood, Where never mortal foot hath stood, Keeps dancing, music, and a feast, To entertain a lovely guest : Where he gives her many a rose, Sweeter than the breath that blows The leaves ; grapes, berries of the best ; I never saw so great a feast. But, to my charge : Here must I stay, To see what mortals lose their way, And by a false fire seeming bright, Train them in and leave them right, Then must I watch if any be Forcing of a chastity...
Page 23 - Here be grapes, whose lusty blood Is the learned poet's good. Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus ; nuts more brown Than the squirrel's teeth that crack them...
Page 22 - Thicken'd with misty film of dulling rheum : These I can cure, such secret virtue lies In herbs applied by a virgin's hand.

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