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1623.

Is she kind as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness:
Love doth to her eyes repair,

To help him of his blindness;
And, being help'd, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

William Shakespeare.

ΙΟ

15

"O MISTRESS MINE, WHERE ARE

YOU ROAMING?"

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? 't is not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What 's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,-
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

6

1623.

12

William Shakespeare.

"TAKE, O TAKE THOSE LIPS

AWAY"

From Measure for Measure

TAKE, O take those lips away,

That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn!
But my kisses bring again,

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TELL me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?

Reply, reply.

4

1600.

It is engendered 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.

William Shakespeare.

10

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1599.

Youth is nimble, Age is lame:

Youth is hot and bold,

Age is weak and cold;

Youth is wild, and Age is tame:

Age, I do abhor thee,

Youth, I do adore thee;

O! my Love, my Love is young!

Age, I do defy thee

O sweet shepherd, hie thee,

For methinks thou stay'st too long

William Shakespeare (?)

20

"ON A DAY, ALACK THE DAY!"

1598.

From L. L. L.

ON a day, alack the day!
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:

Through the velvet leaves the wind
All unseen 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,

Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn

Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:

Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;

Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!

Do not call it sin in me

That I am forsworn for thee:

Thou for whom e'en Jove would swear

Juno but an Ethiope were,

And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

William Shakespeare.

ΙΟ

20

"COME AWAY, COME AWAY,

1623.

DEATH"

From Twelfth Night

COME away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;

I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!

My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,

On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet

My poor corpse, where my bones shall
be thrown:

A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O where

Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!

William Shakespeare.

8

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