Sonnet Xxx.
when to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long-since-cancelled woe,
And...
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Sonnet Xxix.
when in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With... -
Sonnet Lv.
not marble, not the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents,
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The... -
From “Julius Cæsar,” Act IV. Sc. 3.
Enter BRUTUS and CASSIUS.
CASSIUS.—That you have wronged me doth appear in this:
You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella
For taking bribes here of the Sardians;
Wherein my letter, praying on his side,
Because I knew the man, was slighted off.
BRUTUS.—You wronged yourself to write in such a case.... -
From “As You Like It,” Act III. Sc. 5.
THINK not I love him, though I ask for him;
’T is but a peevish boy:—yet he talks well;—
But what care I for words?—yet words do well,
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
But, sure, he ’s proud; and yet his pride becomes him:
He ’ll make a proper man: The best thing in him
Is his... -
From “The Merchant of Venice,” Act III. Sc. 2.
TELL me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourishèd?
Reply, reply.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,... -
From “Love’s Labor ’s Lost,” Act IV. Sc. 3.
KING.—But what of this? are we not all in love?
BIRON.—Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.
KING.—Then leave this chat; and, good Biron, now prove
Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.
DUMAIN.—Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.
LONGAVILLE.—O, some authority how to proceed... -
From “Twelfth Night,” Act II. Sc. 3.
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;... -
From “Othello,” Act I. Sc. 3.
OTHELLO.—Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,—
That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her:
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
And little blessed with the soft... -
Sonnet Cxlviii.
o ME! what eyes hath Love put in my head
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love’s eye is...