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 season'd are
To their right praise, and true perfection!
Peace, hoa! the moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awaked!
From the four corners of the earth they come,
To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing saint.
The Hyrcanian deserts, and the vasty wilds
Of wide Arabia, are as throughfares now,
For princes to come view fair Portia :
The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head
Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar
To stop the foreign spirits; but they come,
As o'er a brook, to see fair Portia.
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,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze,
By the sweet power of music: therefore, the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since naught so stockish, hard and full of rage,
But music for 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.
LOVE'S MESSENGER COMPARED TO AN APRIL DAY.
So likely an embassador of love :
A day in April never came so sweet,
To show how costly summer was at hand,
As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.
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 cherubins :
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
The quality of mercy is not strain'd;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath it is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this scepter'd sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
Mark you this, Bassanio,
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;
A goodly apple rotten at the heart;
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
* A small flat dish, used in the administration of the Eucharist.
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 sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And, when she drinks, 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 when the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe;
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear;
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
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 collied + 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.
When Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the watery glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass.
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 women spoke;—
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
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