Give me your hand, Bassanio: fare you well!
grieve not that I am fallen to this for you;
for herein Fortune shews herself more kind
than is her custom: it is still her use

to let the wretched man outlive his wealth,
to view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow,
an age of poverty: from which lingering penance
of such misery doth she cut me off.
Commend me to your honourable wife:
tell her the process of Antonio's end;

say how I loved you, speak me fair in death;
and, when the tale is told, bid her be judge,
whether Bassanio had not once a love.

W. SHAKESPEARE

954

LOVE

HE season comes with you

THE

when love that's innocent may well be wise. But not inevitably one with wisdom

is innocent love at all times and with all.

Love changes with the changing life of man:
in its first youth, sufficient to itself,
heedless of all beside, it reigns alone,

revels or storms and spends itself in passion.
In middle-age,—a garden through whose soil

the roots of neighbouring forest trees have crept,-
it strikes on stringy customs buried deep,

perhaps on alien passions: still it grows

and lacks not force nor freshness: but this age
shall aptly chuse as answering best its own

a love that clings not nor is exigent,
encumbers not the active purposes,

nor drains their source; but proffers with free grace
pleasure at pleasure touched, at pleasure waived,
a washing of the weary traveller's feet,

a quenching of his thirst, a sweet repose,
alternate and preparative, in groves

where loving much the flower that loves the shade,
and loving much the shade that that flower loves,

he yet is unbewildered, unenslaved,

thence starting light and pleasantly let go
when serious service calls.

955 SEBASTIAN AND NICUSA HIS NEPHEW ON A

Nic.

Seb.

D

DESERT ISLAND

O they live still?

Yes and make to harbour.

Nic. Most miserable men! I grieve their fortunes.

Seb. How happy had they been, had the sea covered them! they leap from one calamity to another;

had they been drowned, they had ended all their

sorrows.

What shouts of joy they make!

Nic. Alas, poor wretches!

had they but once experience of this island,
they'd turn their tunes to wailings.

Seb. Nay, to curses,

that ever they set foot on such calamities:
here is nothing but rocks and barrenness,
no summer here, to promise anything,
nor autumn, to make full the reaper's hands,
the earth, obdurate to the tears of heaven,
lets nothing shoot but poisoned weeds;
no rivers nor no pleasant groves, no beasts;
all that were made for man's use fly this desert:
no airy fowl dares make his flight over it,
it is so ominous :

serpents and ugly things, the shames of nature, roots of malignant tastes, foul standing waters. Nic. Oh, uncle, yet a little memory

956

of what we were! 'twill be a little comfort
in our calamities:

when we were seated in our blesséd homes,
how happy in our kindreds, in our families,
in all our fortunes!

Y

J. FLETCHER

MANFRED ON THE JUNGFRAU

My Mother Earth!

and thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains,

why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye.
And thou, the bright eye of the universe,
that openest over all, and unto all

art a delight-thou shin'st not on my heart.

And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge
I stand, and on the torrent's brink beneath
behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs
in dizziness of distance; when a leap,
a stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring
my breast upon its rocky bosom's bed
to rest for ever-wherefore do I pause?
I feel the impulse-yet I do not plunge;
I see the peril—yet do not recede;

and my brain reels-and yet my foot is firm;
there is a power upon me which withholds,
and makes it my fatality to live;

if it be life to wear within myself
this barrenness of spirit, and to be
my own soul's sepulchre, for I have ceased
to justify my deeds unto myself—
the last infirmity of evil. Ay,

thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister,
whose happy flight is highest into heaven,

well may'st thou swoop so near me-I should be
thy prey and gorge thine eaglets.

LORD BYRON

957

K. H.

KING HENRY V-CHIEF JUSTICE

YOU

U all look strangely on me:-and you most; you are, I think, assured I love you not. C. 7. I am assured, if I be measured rightly, your majesty hath no just cause to hate me. K. H. No!

how might a prince of my great hopes forget so great indignities you laid upon me? What! rate, rebuke and roughly send to prison the immediate heir of England! Was this easy? May this be washed in Lethe and forgotten? C. 7. I then did use the person of your father; the image of his power lay then in me: and, in the administration of his law, whiles I was busy for the commonwealth, your highness pleased to forget my place, the majesty and power of law and justice, the image of the king whom I presented, and struck me in my very seat of judgment;

958

Vul.

whereon, as an offender to your father,
I gave bold way to my authority,

and did commit you. If the deed were ill,
be you contented, wearing now the garland,
to have a son set your decrees at nought,
to pluck down justice from your awful bench,
to trip the course of law, and blunt the sword
that guards the peace and safety of your person,
nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image,
and mock your workings in a second body.

G

VULCAN-PHOEBUS

W. SHAKESPEARE

OOD morrow, Phoebus; what's the news abroad? for thou seest all things in the world are done, men act by daylight, or the sight of sun. Pha. Sometime I cast my eye upon the sea,

to see the tumbling seal or porpoise play.
There see I merchants trading, and their sails
big-bellied with the wind: sea fights sometimes
rise with their smoke-thick clouds to dark my beams;
sometimes I fix my face upon the earth,
with my warm fervour to give metals, trees,
herbs, plants and flowers, life.

Yonder the labouring plowman drives his team.
Further I may behold main battles pitcht;
and whom I favour most (by the wind's help)
I can assist with my transparent rays.

Here spy I cattle feeding; forests there

stored with wild beasts; here shepherds with their lasses

piping beneath the trees while their flocks gaze.
In cities I see trading, walking, bargaining,
buying and selling, goodness, badness, all things,
and shine alike on all.

No emperor walks forth, but I see his state:
nor sports, but I his pastimes do behold:

I see all coronations, funerals,

marts, fairs, assemblies, pageants, sights and shows. No hunting but I better see the chase,

than they that rouse the game.

T. HEYWOOD

959

THE MISeries oF ROYALTY

HARD condition!

twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath

of every fool, whose sense no more can feel

but his own wringing!

What infinite heart's-ease must kings neglect,
that private men enjoy!

And what have kings, that privates have not too,
save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?
what kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
what are thy rents? what are thy comings-in?
O ceremony, show me but thy worth!

what is the soul of adoration?

art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
creating awe and fear in other men?

wherein thou art less happy being fear'd,

than they in fearing.

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, but poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, and bid thy ceremony give thee cure!

think'st thou, the fiery fever will go out

with titles blown from adulation?

will it give place to flexure and low bending?

canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, that play'st so subtly with a king's repose;

I am a king that find thee; and I know,
960 'tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
the sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
the enter-tissued robe of gold and pearl,
the farcéd title running 'fore the king,
the throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
that beats upon the high shore of this world,
no, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
not all these, laid in bed majestical,

can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave;
who, with a body fill'd, and vacant mind,

gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;
never sees horrid night, the child of hell;
but, like a lackey, from the rise to set,
sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night