1

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she:

Be not her maid, since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

It is my lady; O! it is my love:

O, that she knew she were!

She speaks, yet she says nothing! What of that?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.

I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven.
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would sing and think it were not night.

PORTIA.

("Merchant of Venice.")

BASSANIO. In Belmont is a lady richly left,
And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wond'rous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages:

Her name is Portia ; nothing undervalued

To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.

Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;
For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors: and her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece.

BASSANIO.

PORTIA'S PORTRAIT.

What find I here?

Fair Portia's counterfeit? What demi-god

Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?

Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,

Seem they in motion? Here are severed lips,
Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar

Should sunder such sweet friends: Here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider; and hath woven
A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men,
Faster than gnats in cobwebs : But her eyes-
How could he see to do them? having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his,
And leave itself unfurnished: Yet look, how far
The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
In underprising it, so far this shadow

Doth limp behind the substance.

FERDINAND.

MIRANDA.

("The Tempest.")

Admired Miranda !

Indeed the top of admiration; worth

What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady
I have eyed with best regard; and many a time
The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues
Have I liked several women; never any

With so full soul, but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed,

And put it to the foil: But you, O you,

So perfect, and so peerless, are created
Of every creature's best.

IMOGEN, SLEEPING.

("Cymbeline.")

IACHIMO. HOW bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily! And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!

'Tis her breathing that

Perfumes the chamber thus: The flame o' the taper
Bows toward her; and would under-peep her lids,
To see the inclosed lights, now canopied
Under these windows, white and azure, laced
With blue of heaven's own tinct.

ROSALIND.

("As you Like It.")

(Orlando pins upon the trees in the forest of Arden verses descriptive of Rosalind.)

FROM the east to western Ind,

No jewel is like Rosalind.

Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rosalind.

All the pictures, fairest lined,

Are but black to Rosalind.
Let no face be kept in mind,
But the fair of Rosalind.

*

Tongues I'll hang on every tree,
That shall civil sayings show.
Some, how brief the life of man
Runs his erring pilgrimage;
That the stretching of a span
Buckles in his sum of age.
Some, of violated vows,

'Twixt the souls of friend and friend:

But upon the fairest boughs,

Or at every sentence' end,

Will I Rosalinda write;

Teaching all that read, to know
The quintessence of every sprite

Heaven would in little show.
Therefore Heaven Nature charged
That one body should be filled
With all graces wide enlarged:
Nature presently distilled

Helen's cheek, but not her heart;
Cleopatra's majesty,
Atalanta's better part,

Sad Lucretia's modesty.

Thus Rosalind of many parts

By heavenly synod was devised;

Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,

To have the touches dearest prized.

FLORIZEL.

PERDITA.

("A Winter's Tale.")

What you do

Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,

I'd have you do it ever: when you sing,

I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms;

Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,

To sing them too: When you do dance, I wish you

A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do

Nothing but that; move still, still so, and own
No other function. Each your doing,

So singular in each particular,

Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds, That all your acts are queens.

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UNA.

FROM THE FAERIE QUEEN," BY EDMUND SPENSER.

UNA AND the red-CROSS KNIGHT.

A

GENTLE knight was pricking on the plain,

Yclad in mighty arms and silver shield, Wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain, The cruel marks of many a bloody field; Yet arms till that time did he never wield; His angry steed did chide his foaming bit, As much disdaining to the curb to yield : Full jolly knight he seemed, and fair did sit, As one for knightly jousts and fierce encounters fit.

A lovely lady rode him fair beside,

Upon a lowly ass more white than snow;
Yet she much whiter, but the same did hide
Under a veil that wimpled was full low,
And over all a black stole she did throw,
As one that inly mourned: so was she sad,
And heavy sat upon her palfrey slow;

Seemed in heart some hidden care she had,
And by her in a line a milk-white lamb she led.

So pure and innocent, as that same lamb,
She was in life and every virtuous lore,
And by descent from royal lineage came