From Measure for Measure :

Take, oh take those lips away,

That so sweetly are forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,

Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again,

Bring again,
Seals of love, but seal'd in vain,

Seal'd in vain!
From The Merchant of Venice :-

Tell me, where is Fancy' bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourished ?

: Reply, reply.
It is engender’a in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and Fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies :

Let us all ring Fancy's knell :
I'll begin it,Ding, dong, bell.

Ding, dong, bell.
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.

From The Tempest :

Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands;

Foot it featly here and there ;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
The watch-dogs bark—bowgh, bowgh.
Hark! hark! I hear
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.
On the bat's back do I Ay,

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 Pnæbus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs

On chaliced Aowers that lies;
And winking mary-buds begin

To ope their golden eyes :
With every thing that pretty bin;
My lady sweet, arise ;

Arise, arise !

From Midsummer Night's Dream. The fine song of Oberon :

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine :
There sleeps Titania, some time of the night,
Lulled in these Aowers with dances and delight;

And there the snake throws her enamelled skin,
Weed-wide enough to wrap a fairy in :
And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.

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-Aies 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,
A watch-case, or a common ’larum-bell ?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafʼning clamours in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude ;
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

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
Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,
For her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears ; the earth’s a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrement; each thing's a thief;
The law, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have unchecked theft.

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,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

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