From those high towers this noble lord issuing, Like radiant Hesper when his golden hayre Above the rest were goodly to bee seene Two gentle knights of lovely face and feature, Beseeming well the bower of anie queene, 170 With gifts of wit and ornaments of nature, Fit for so goodly stature: That like the twins of Jove they seem'd in sight, Which decke the bauldricke of the heavens bright. They two, forth pacing to the rivers side, Received those two faire brides, their loves delight, Which, at th' appointed tyde, Sweete Themmes, runne softly, till I end [From As You Like It] BLow, blow, thou winter wind, As man's ingratitude; Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly. Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. Then, heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, As friend rememb'red not. Heigh-ho! sing, etc. SONG [From Twelfth Night] O MISTRESS mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear, your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low. Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know. What is love? 'Tis not hereafter. Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, SONG [From Cymbeline] HARK, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus gins arise His steeds to water at those springs And winking Mary-buds begin But if the while I think on thee, dear When sometime lofty towers I see downfriend, All losses are restor❜d and sorrows end. 55 Nor marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgement that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. 60 razed And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing store with loss and loss with store; When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay; away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose. 65 SINCE brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o'er-sways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out LIKE as the waves make towards the peb- Against the wreckful siege of batt'ring days, bled shore, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays? O fearful meditation! where, alack, Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid? Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid ? 66 TIR'D with all these, for restful death I cry, |