WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

LET me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love,

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 prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

ACCUSE me thus; that I have scanted all

Wherein I should your great deserts repay;
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,

Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right;
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds

Which should transport me farthest from your sight:
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on just proof, surmise accumulate,
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate:
Since my appeal says, I did strive to prove
The constancy and virtue of your love.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

THE expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust

Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so ;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof,—and prov'd, a very woe ;

Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream :

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

I KNOW that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought,
In Time's great periods shall return to nought;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days:
I know how all the Muses' heavenly lays,
With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought,
And that nought lighter is than airy praise:
I know frail beauty like the purple flower,
To which one morn oft birth and death affords;
That love a jarring is of minds' accords,
Where sense and will envassal reason's power:
Know what I list, this all cannot me move,

But that, (Oh me!) I both must write and love.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

Now, while the Night her sable veil hath spread,

And silently her resty coach doth roll,

Rousing with her from Tethys' azure bed

Those starry nymphs which dance about the pole ; While Cynthia, in purest cyprus cled,

The Latmian shepherd in a trance descries,

And whiles looks pale from height of all the skies,
Whiles dyes her beauties in a bashful red;
While Sleep, in triumph closed hath all eyes,
And birds and beasts a silence sweet do keep,
And Proteus' monstrous people in the deep
The winds and waves hush'd up to rest entice;
I wake, muse, weep, and who my heart hath slain
See still before me to augment my pain.