From “Macbeth,” Act II. Sc. 2.
SCENE in the Castle. Enter LADY MACBETH.
LADY MACBETH.—That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold,
What hath quenched them hath given me fire. Hark!—Peace!
It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern’st good night. He is about it:
The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms...
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From “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act I. Sc. 1.
FOR aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth:
But, either it was different in blood,
Or else misgraffèd in respect of years,
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends;
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War,... -
From “Twelfth Night,” Act I. Sc. 4.
VIOLA.—Ay, but I know,—
DUKE.—What dost thou know?
VIOLA.—Too well what love women to men may owe:
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man,
As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
DUKE.—And what ’s her history?
... -
Sonnet Cvi.
when in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights;
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you... -
Sonnet Xviii.
shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed:
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or... -
Sonnet Xcix.
the FORWARD violet thus did I chide:—
Sweet thief, whence did thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love’s breath? the purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells,
In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemnèd for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair:
The... -
From “Twelfth Night,” Act I. Sc. 5.
VIOLA.—’T is beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on:
Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive,
If you will lead these graces to the grave,
And leave the world no copy. -
From “The Merchant of Venice,” Act III. Sc. 2.
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;... -
From “a Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act V. Sc. 1.
THE LUNATIC, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to... -
From “Romeo and Juliet,” Act I. Sc. 4.
O, THEN, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife; and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep:
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs;
The...