How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica: Look, how. the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim:
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
I am never merry, when I hear sweet music. Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive: For do but note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud, Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze,
By the sweet power of music: Therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since not so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature:
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.
A GOOD DEED COMPARED.
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
A small flat dish, used in the administration of the
NOTHING GOOD OUT OF SEASON.
The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season seasoned are
To their right praise, and true perfection!-
Peace, hoa! the moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awak'd!
This night, methinks, is but the daylight sick, It looks a little paler; 'tis a day,
Such as the day is when the sun is hid.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
A FATHER'S AUTHORITY.
TO you your father should be as a god; One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in wax, By him imprinted, and within his power To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun;
For aye* to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice blessed they, that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage:
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,
Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn, Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
TRUE LOVE EVER CROSSED.
For aught that ever I could read
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth:
But, either it was different in blood:
Or else misgraffed, in respect of years;
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends:
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it;
Making it momentany* as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the colliedt night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say,—Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
I swear to thee, by cupid's strongest bow;
By his best arrow with the golden head;
By the simplicity of Venus' doves;
By that which knitteth souls, and prospers loves:
And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen,
When the false Trojan under sail was seen;
By all the vows that ever men have broke,
In number more than ever woman spoke;-
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
When Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,
Decking with liquid pearls the bladed grass.
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 winged Cupid painted blind:
Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.
As waggish boys in game* themselves forswear,
So the boy love is perjur'd every where.
I am that merry wanderer of the night,
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a silly foal:
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;†
And, when she drink, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe;
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
FAIRY JEALOUSY, AND THE EFFECTS OF IT.
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 on the beachy margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land,
Have every pelting river made so proud,
That they have overborne their continents;§
The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat; and the green corn
* Sport.
† Wild apple.
Banks which contain them.
Hath rotted, ere his youth attained a beard:,
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrian flock;
The nine men's morris* is fill'd up with mud;
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are undistinguishable;
The human mortals want their winter here;
No night is now with hymn or carol bless'd:-
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And through this distemperature, we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hyems' chin, an icy crown,
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in a mockery, set: The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,
By their increase,‡ now knows not which is which.
Thou remember'st
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such a 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 music.
That very time I saw, (but thou could'st not,)
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, throned by the west;
And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;
And the imperial votress passed on,
In maiden meditation fancy-free.§
*A game played by boys.
Autumn producing flowers unseasonably.
Produce.
§ Exempt from love.
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