From “King Lear,” Act IV. Sc. 6.
COME on, sir; here ’s the place: stand still!
How fearful
And dizzy ’t is, to cast one’s eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire,—dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The...
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From “As You Like It,” Act II. Sc. 5.
UNDER the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird’s throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither;
Here shall he see
No enemy
But Winter and rough weather.Who doth ambition shun
And... -
From “Cymbeline,” Act II. Sc. 3.
HARK, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phœbus ’gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With everything that pretty bin,
My lady sweet, arise;
Arise, arise! -
From “The Tempest,” Act I. Sc. 2.
I.
COME unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands;
Court’sied when you have, and kissed.
(The wild waves whist!)
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
Hark, hark!
Burthen [dispersedly]—Bow-wow.
The watch-dogs bark—
Burthen... -
From “The Tempest,” Act IV. Sc. 1.
OUR revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,... -
From “The Faërie Queene,” Book I. Canto I.
A GENTLE Knight was pricking on the plaine,
Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde,
Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine,
The cruell markes of many a bloody fielde;
Yet armes till that time did he never wield:
His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,
As much... -
From “The Faërie Queene,” Book I. Canto III.
ONE day, nigh wearie of the yrkesome way,
From her unhastie beast she did alight;
And on the grasse her dainty limbs did lay
In secrete shadow, far from all mens sight;
From her fayre head her fillet she undight,
And layd her stole aside. Her angels face,
As the great eye of heaven... -
From “The Faërie Queene,” Book II. Canto XII.
THERE the most daintie paradise on ground
Itselfe doth offer to his sober eye,
In which all pleasures plenteously abownd,
And none does others happinesse envye;
The painted flowres; the trees upshooting hye;
The dales for shade; the hilles for breathing space;
The trembling groves... -
From “The Faërie Queene,” Book I. Canto I.
HE, making speedy way through spersèd ayre,
And through the world of waters wide and deepe,
To Morpheus house doth hastily repaire,
Amid the bowels of the earth full steepe,
And low, where dawning day doth never peepe,
His dwelling is; there Tethys his wet bed
Doth ever wash, and... -
Sonnet Xii.
when I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier...