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'Thou art my choice, I constant am,
I mean to die unspotted;

With thee I'll live, for thee I love,
And keep my name unblotted.
A virtuous life in maid and wife,
The Spirit of God commends it;
Accursed he for ever be,

That seeks with shame to offend it.'

With that she rose like nimble roe,
The tender grass scarce bending,*
And left me then perplexed with fear
At this her sonnet's ending.

I thought to move this dame of love,
But she was gone already;

Wherefore I pray that those that stay
May find their loves as steady.

SHAKESPEARE.

1564-1616.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

SILVIA.

WHO is Silvia?

What is she,

That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise is she,

The heavens such grace did lend her,

That she might admirèd be.

*Or like a nymph with long dishevelled hair
Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen.

SHAKESPEARE.-Venus and Adonis.

As falcon to the lure, away she flies;

The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light.-Ibid.

A foot more light, a step more true,

Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew;

E'en the slight harebell raised its head,

Elastic from her airy tread.

THE DRAMATISTS.

SCOTT.-Lady of the Lake.

6

Is she kind as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness:
Love doth to her eyes repair,

To help him of his blindness;
And, being helped, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing,
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.

WHITE AND RED.

IF she be made of white and red,

Her faults will ne'er be known;
For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
And fears by pale-white shown;
Then, if the fear, or be to blame,
By this you shall not know;

For still her cheeks possess the same,
Which native she doth own.*

IF

2 THE STUDENT FORSAKES HIS BOOKS FOR LOVE.

F love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed! Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove; These thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers

bowed.

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes, Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend;

* Own-possess.

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice; Well learned is that tongue that will ever thee commend:

All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder; (Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire ;) Thine eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire. Celestial as thou art, oh pardon, love, this wrong, That sings heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue!

BEAUTY THROUGH TEARS.

So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not

To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
As thine eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows:
Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
As doth thy face through tears of mine give light:
Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep;
No drop but as a coach doth carry thee,
So ridest thou triumphing in my woe:
Do but behold the tears that swell in me,

And they thy glory through my grief will show:
But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
queen of queens, how far dost thou excel!
No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.

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THE DEFENCE OF PERJURY.

DID not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye

('Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,)

Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.

A woman I forswore; but, I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:

My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;

Thy grace being gained, cures all disgrace in me.

Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour

is:

Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, Exhalest this vapour vow; in thee it is:

If broken then, it is no fault of mine,
If by me broke. What fool is not so wise,
To lose an oath to win a paradise?

ON

FORSWORN FOR LOVE.

a day, (alack the day!)

Love, whose month is ever May,

Spied a blossom, passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:

Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, 'gan passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,

Wished himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn,
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
Do not call it sin in me,

That I am forsworn for thee:
Thou for whom Jove would swear,
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,

Turning mortal for thy love.

SPRING AND WINTER.

I

WHEN daisies pied, and violets blue,

And lady-smocks all silver-white,

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

2

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,—O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

3

When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel* the pot.

4

When all around the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

*Skim.

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