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.
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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;... -
See the chariot at hand here of Love!
Wherein my lady rideth!
Each that draws is a swan, or a dove,
And well the car Love guideth.
As she goes, all hearts do duty
Unto her beauty.
And, enamored, do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,
That they still were to run by her side
Through swords... -
From the First Sestiad of “Hero and Leander”
ON Hellespont, guilty of true love’s blood,
In view and opposite two cities stood,
Sea-borderers, disjoined by Neptune’s might;
The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,
And offered as a dower his burning throne,
... -
From the Greek of Philostratus
From “The Forest”
DRINK to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I ’ll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.I sent...
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From “The Vision of Delight”
BREAK, Fantasy, from thy cave of cloud,
And spread thy purple wings,
Now all thy figures are allowed,
And various shapes of things;
Create of airy forms a stream,
It must have blood, and naught of phlegm;
And though it be a waking dream,
Yet let it like an odor rise
To all the senses... -
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... -
From “a Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act II. Sc. 1.
OVER hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In... -
From “a Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Act II. Sc. 1.
OBERON.—My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou remember’st
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin’s back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid’s...