From Measure for Measure: Take, oh take those lips away, That so sweetly are forsworn; Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, From The Merchant of Venice : Tell me, where is Fancy' bred, It is engender'a in the eyes, Let us all ring Fancy's knell: From As You Like It : Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude : Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh, ho! sing heigh, ho! unto the green holly; Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. The watch-dogs bark-bowgh, bowgh. The strain of strutting chanticlere Cry cock-a-doodle do. Where the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch, when owls do cry. After summer, merrily: Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. From Cymbeline : Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes: From Midsummer Night's Dream. The fine song of Oberon :— I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, And there the snake throws her enamelled skin, And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, Here is a magnificent apostrophe to Sleep: O sleep! O gentle sleep! Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness? Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber; Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state, And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody? O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile, In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch, Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ? To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down! In Timon of Athens, is this humorous passage on stealing : I'll example you with thievery; The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction We have but space for one of Shakspeare's fine sonnets; but we think this one of the best :— Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove : O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom; If this be error, and upon me proved, In Othello, Desdemona says: "My mother had a maid called Barbara; she was in love; and he she loved proved mad, and did forsake her she had a song of willow, an old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune, and she died singing it: that song to-night |