Lor. 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 cherubims;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it.

Enter Musicians.

Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress's ear,
And draw her home with music.

[Music.
Jes. 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, stores, and floods;
Since nought 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.-Mark the music.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA at a distance.

Por. That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Ner. When the moon shone we did not see the candle.

Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as does an inland brook
Into the main of waters. Music! hark!

Ner. It is your music, madam, of the house.
Por. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
Ner. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
Por. 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!

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

Act iii., sc. ii. Pandarus' Orchard.

Tro. Oh, that I thought it could be in a woman (As, if it can, I will presume in you)

To feed for aye her lamps and flames of love;
To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays!

Or that persuasion could but thus convince me,
That my integrity and truth to you

Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of such a winnow'd purity in love;
How were I then uplifted! but, alas,
I am as true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth.
Cres. In that I'll war with you.

Oh virtuous fight,

Tro.
When right with right wars, who shall be most right!
True swains in love shall, in the world to come,
Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,
Want similes, truth, tired with iteration,
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre-
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,

As truth's authentic author to be cited,
As true as Troilus shall crown up the verse,
And sanctify the numbers.

Cres.

Prophet may you be!

If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,

When time is old and hath forgot itself,

When water-drops have worn the stones of Troy, And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,

And mighty states characterless are grated

To dusty nothing; yet let memory,

From false to false, among false maids in love, Upbraid my falsehood! when they have said-as false

As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,

As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,
Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son;

Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
As false as Cressid.

CYMBELINE.

Act iv., sc. ii. Before the Cave. Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, bearing IMOGEN, as dead, in his arms.

Bel.

Look, here he comes, And brings the dire occasion in his arms, Of what we blame him for!

The bird is dead,

Arv. That we have made so much on. I had rather Have skipp'd from sixteen years of age to sixty, To have turn'd my leaping time into a crutch, Than have seen this.

Gui.

Oh, sweetest, fairest lily! My brother wears thee not one half so well As when thou grew'st thyself.

Bel.

Oh, melancholy!

Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find

The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare Might easiliest harbour in? Thou blessed thing! Jove knows what man thou might'st have made: but I,

Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy!

How found you him?

Arv.

Stark, as you see:

Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,
Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at: his right cheek
Reposing on a cushion.

Gui.

Arv.

Where?

O' the floor;

His arms thus leagued: I thought he slept: and put My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness Answer'd my steps too loud.

Why, he but sleeps:

Gui.
If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed;
With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
And worms will not come to thee.

With fairest flowers,

Arv.
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,

I'll sweeten thy sad grave.

Thou shalt not lack

The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azured harebell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock would,
With charitable bill (oh, bill, sore-shaming
Those rich-left heirs, that let their father's lie
Without a monument !), bring thee all this;
Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK,

Act i., sc. iii. A Room in Polonius' House. Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA.

Laer. My necessaries are embark'd; farewell: And, sister, as the winds give benefit,

And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,

But let me hear from you.

Oph.

Do you doubt that?

Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour, Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;

A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute ;
No more.

Oph.
Laer.

No more but so?

Think it no more:

For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
In thews and bulk; but, as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul

Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now;
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch

The virtue of his will: but you must fear,

His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth:
He may not, as unvalued persons do,