Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. The watch-dogs bark-bowgh, bowgh. The strain of strutting chanticlere 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 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, Here is a magnificent apostrophe to Sleep: O sleep! O gentle sleep! Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 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, Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains And in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; 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 wɩ think this one of the best : Let me not to the marriage of true minds 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 will not go from my mind; I have much to do, but to go hang my head all at one side, and sing it like poor Barbara : The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree, Sing all a green willow; Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee, Sing willow, willow, willow: The fresh streams ran by her, and murmured her moans; Sing willow, willow, willow. Her salt tears fell from her, and softened the stones, Sing willow, willow, willow Sing all a green willow must be my garland." Reluctantly as we leave the almost unexplored wealth of thought and imagery which cluster the pages of this magician of the pen, we yet must pass on to some of his contemporaries : "Those shining stars that run Their glorious course round Shakspeare's golden sun.” Among these were BEN JONSON, BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, and others. Glancing over the life-records of these gifted, but, for the most part, erratic sons of genius, who can trace their checkered career without tender sympathy for their misfortunes, while cherishing reverence and admiration of their exalted endowments! BEN JONSON'S proud fame was allied with suffering and sorrow, for we find at his closing days the poet thanking his patron, the Earl of Newcastle, for bounties which, he says, had "fallen like the dew of heaven on his necessities." The classic beauty of the following lyric of JONSON has ever been the admiration of all critics : Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine; I sent thee late a rosy wreath, not so much honouring thee, But thou thereon didst only breathe, and sent'st it back to me ; Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. Another of his exquisite songs is the well-known Hymn to Diana,' O Diana is here addressed as the moon, rather than the goddess of hunting. |