Shakespeare's Comedy of A Midsummer-night's Dream

Front Cover
Harper, 1888 - 195 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 58 - Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound : And thorough this distemperature we see The seasons alter : hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set.
Page 57 - These are the forgeries of jealousy : And never, since the middle summer's spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By paved fountain, or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Page 112 - Now it is the time of night That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide: And we fairies, that do run By the triple Hecate's team, From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolic; not a mouse Shall disturb this hallow'd house: I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door.
Page 50 - Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind ; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind...
Page 62 - I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine...
Page 97 - The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen ; man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
Page 38 - The best in this kind are but shadows ; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.
Page 162 - For mine own good, All causes shall give way : I am in blood Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er : Strange things I have in head, that will to hand ; Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.
Page 97 - I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was; man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.
Page 181 - What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore, The Muse herself, for her enchanting son, Whom universal nature did lament, When by the rout that made the hideous roar His gory visage down the stream was sent, Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?

Bibliographic information