The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts, of men
At duty, more than I could frame employment;
That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves
Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush
Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare
For every storm that blows.

258

I have felt so many quirks of joy, and grief,
That the first face of neither, on the start,
Can woman me unto 't.

27-iv. 3.

11-iii. 2.

259

Give me a gash, put me to present pain;

Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me,
O'erbear the shores of my mortality,

And drown me with their sweetness.

33-v. 1.

260

A joy past joy.

35-iii. 3.

261

There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture: they looked, as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed:* A notable passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say, if the importancet were joy, or sorrow: but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be. 13-v. 2.

262

You have bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins:
And there is such confusion in my powers,
As, after some oration fairly spoke
By a beloved prince, there doth appear
Among the buzzing pleased multitude;

*This description not only contains the beautiful and the sublime, but rises to a still higher sublimity, or, to speak in the style of the Psalmist, to the most highest, in the allusion to sacred writ, relating to the two principal articles in the Old and New Testament, the fall of man and his redemption. Shakspeare makės frequent references to the sacred text, and writes often, not only as a moral. ist, but as a divine.

The thing imported.

Where every something, being blent* together,
Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy,

Express'd, and not express'd.

9-iii. 2.

263

O rejoice,

Beyond a common joy; and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars.

264

I could weep,

And I could laugh; I am light, and heavy.

265

1-v. 1.

28-ii. 1.

O my soul's joy!

If after every tempest come such calms,

May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas,
Olympus-high; and duck again as low

As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die,

"Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear,

My soul hath her content so absolute,
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.

266

Joy had the like conception in our eyes,
And, at that instant, like a babe sprung up.

37-ii. 1.

27-i. 2.

267

His flaw'd heart,

(Alack, too weak the conflict to support!)

"Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,

Burst smilingly.

268

34-v. 3.

If the measure of thy joy Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more To blazont it, then sweeten with thy breath This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue Unfold the imagined happiness, that both Receive in either by this dear encounter.

* Blended.

35-ii. 6.

† Paint, display.

269

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 momentary 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.

270

7-i. 1.

O that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal.

That same wicked brat of Venus, that was begot of thought, conceived of spleen, and born of madness; that blind rascally boy, that abuses every one's eyes, because his own are out, let him be judge, how deep 1 am in love. 10-iv. 1.

271

O hard-believing love! how strange it seems
Not to believe, and yet too credulous!
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes,
Despair and hope make thee ridiculous!

The one doth flatter thee, in thoughts unlikely,
With likely thoughts, the other kills thee quickly.

272

If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;
Or, if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo; but, else, not for the world.

Poems.

35-ii. 2.

* Black.

† Melancholy.

273

Farewell, one eye yet looks on thee;
But with my heart the other eye doth see.
Ah! poor our sex! this fault in us I find,
The error of our eye directs our mind:
What error leads, must err; O then conclude,
Minds, sway'd by eyes, are full of turpitude.

274

26-v. 2.

We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.

275

She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd;
And I loved her, that she did pity them.

276

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone,
Which three, till now, never kept seat in one.

277

We make woe wanton with this fond delay:
Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.

278

On 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,
Wish'd 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.

7-ii. 2.

37-i. 3.

Poems.

17-v. 1.

Do not call it sin in me,

That I am forsworn for thee:

Thou, for whom even Jove would swear,
Juno but an Ethiop were;

And deny himself for Jove,

Turning mortal for thy love.

279

Love's heralds should be thoughts,

8-iv. 3.

Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,
Driving back shadows over low'ring hills:
Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.

280

O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day;

Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!

281

35-ii. 5.

2-i. 3.

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower, when next we meet.

282

35-ii. 2.

How silver-sweet sound lover's tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears!

283

35-ii. 2.

Love like a shadow flies, when substance love pursues; Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.

284

3-ii. 2.

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 wing'd 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 beguiled.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured every where.

7-i. 1.