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.

LOVE IN IDLENESS.

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."

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,-

Before, milk-white; now purple with love's wound,And maidens call it, love-in-idleness

A FAIRY BANK.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows; Quite over-canopied with lushf woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania, some time of the night, Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight.

ACT III.

FAIRY COURTESIES.

Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,‡ With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; The honey bags steal from the humble-bees, And, for night tapers crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, To have my love to bed, and to arise; And pluck the wings from painted butterflies, To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes: Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.

FEMALE FRIENDSHIP.

Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd, The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent, When we have chid the hasty-footed time For parting us,-O, and is all forgot?

All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence,
We, Hermia, like two artificial§ gods,

Have with our neelds created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
The greater cowslip. † Vigorous. Goosberries.
§ Ingenious.
Il Needles.

Had been incorporate. So we grew together,,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted;
But yet a union in partition,

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem:
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly, 'Tis not maidenly:

Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it;
Though I alone do feel the injury.

DAYBREAK.

Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;

At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,

Troop home to church-yards.

ACT IV.

DEW IN FLOWERS.

And that same dew, which sometime on the buds Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls, Stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes, Like tears, that did their own disgrace bewail.

HUNTING.

We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top, nd mark the musical confusion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

Hip. I was with Hercules, and Cadmus, once
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding;* for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder

* Sound.

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee'd, and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls, Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tuneable Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with norn.

ACT V.

THE POWER OF IMAGINATION.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:†

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heav'n;

And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation, and a name.

SIMPLICITY AND DUTY.

For never any thing can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it.

Hip. I love not to see wretchedness o'ercharg'd, And duty in his service perishing.

MODEST DUTY ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE.

Where I have come, great clerks have purposed To greet me with premeditated welcomes; Where I have seen them shiver and look pale, Make periods in the midst of sentences, Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears, And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off, Not paying me a welcome: Trust me, sweet.

* The flews are the large chaps of a hound. † Are made of mere imagination.

Out of this silence, yet, I pick'd a welcome;
And in the modesty of fearful duty

I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.

TIME.

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve

NIGHT.

Now the hungry lion roars,

And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.*
Now the wasted brands do glow,

Whilst the scritch-owl, scritching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in wo,
In remembrance of a shroud.
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.

དམས་

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

ACT I.

PEACE INSPIRES LOVE.

BUT now I am return'd, and that war-thoughts Have left their places vacant, in their rooms Come thronging soft and delicate desires, All prompting me how fair young Hero is. D. Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently, And tire the hearer with a book of words: If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it; And I will break with her, and with her father, And thou shalt have her: Was't not to this end, That thou began'st to twist so fine a story? Claud. How sweetly do you minister to love,

* Overcome.