Hath rotted, ere his youth attained a beard LOVE IN IDLENESS. Thou remember'st Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, That very time I saw, (but thou could'st not,) In maiden meditation fancy-free.§ A game played by boys. † Autumn producing flowers unseasonably. Yet mark'd I where the bolt of cupid fell: Before, milk-white; now purple with love's wound,And maidens call it, love-in-idleness A FAIRY BANK. I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows; Quite over-canopied with lushf woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania, some time of the night, Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight. ACT III. FAIRY COURTESIES. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,‡ With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; The honey bags steal from the humble-bees, And, for night tapers crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, To have my love to bed, and to arise; And pluck the wings from painted butterflies, To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes: Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies. FEMALE FRIENDSHIP. Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd, The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time For parting us,-O, and is all forgot? All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence, Have with our neelds created both one flower, Had been incorporate. So we grew together,, Two lovely berries moulded on one stem: Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it; DAYBREAK. Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger; At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, Troop home to church-yards. ACT IV. DEW IN FLOWERS. And that same dew, which sometime on the buds Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls, Stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes, Like tears, that did their own disgrace bewail. HUNTING. We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top, nd mark the musical confusion Of hounds and echo in conjunction. Hip. I was with Hercules, and Cadmus, once * Sound. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee'd, and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls, Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tuneable Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with norn. ACT V. THE POWER OF IMAGINATION. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heav'n; And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen SIMPLICITY AND DUTY. For never any thing can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it. Hip. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd, And duty in his service perishing. MODEST DUTY ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE. Where I have come, great clerks have purposed To greet me with premeditated welcomes; Where I have seen them shiver and look pale, Make periods in the midst of sentences, Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears, And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off, Not paying me a welcome: Trust me, sweet. * The flews are the large chaps of a hound. † Are made of mere imagination. Out of this silence, yet, I pick'd a welcome; I read as much, as from the rattling tongue TIME. The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve NIGHT. Now the hungry lion roars, And the wolf behowls the moon; Whilst the scritch-owl, scritching loud, That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide. དམས་ MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. ACT I. PEACE INSPIRES LOVE. BUT now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant, in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair young Hero is. D. Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently, And tire the hearer with a book of words: If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it; And I will break with her, and with her father, And thou shalt have her: Was't not to this end, That thou began'st to twist so fine a story? Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love, * Overcome. |