"How like a jade he stood, tied to the tree, But when he saw his love, his youth's fair fee, Throwing the base thong from his bending crest, "Who sees his true love in her naked bed, Who is so faint that dare not be so bold "Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy; And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee, To take advantage on presented joy; Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee. O, learn to love; the lesson is but plain, And, once made perfect, never lost again." "I know not love," quoth he, "nor will not know it, Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it: 'Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it; My love to love is love but to disgrace it; For I have heard it is a life in death, That laughs, and weeps, and all but with a breath. Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinished? The colt that's backed and burthened being young "You hurt my hand with wringing; let us part, Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flat tery; For where a heart, is hard, they make no battery." "What! canst thou talk," quoth she, "hast thou a tongue? O, would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing! Ear's deep-sweet music, and heart's deep-sore wounding. "Had I no eyes, but ears, my ears would love Or, were I deaf, thy outward parts would move Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see, "Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me, 1 Mermaid's voice. Mermaid and siren were formerly used as synonymous. So in The Comedy of Errors, Act III. Scene II. : "O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears; For from the still'tory of thy face excelling Comes breath perfumed, that breedeth love by smelling. "But O, what banquet wert thou to the taste, Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest, Once more the ruby-colored portal opened, Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds, This ill presage advisedly she marketh : His meaning struck her ere his words begun. And at his look she flatly falleth down, Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red; 1 Flaws is here used in the sense of violent blasts. And all-amazed brake off his late intent, He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks The night of sorrow now is turned to day : Whose beams upon his hairless face are fixed, 2 1 The windows are doubtless the eyelids, but the epithet blue is somewhat startling. We must remember that Shakspeare has described violets as "Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes." The propriety of this epithet is fully noticed by us in Cymbeline Act 11. Scene II. 2 Repine. Used as a substantive. Chaucer employs pine in the same manner. But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light, Shone like the moon in water seen by night.1 “O, where am I?" quoth she, "in earth or heaven, Or in the ocean drenched, or in the fire? What hour is this? or morn or weary even? Do I delight to die, or life desire? But now I lived, and life was death's annoy; “O, thou didst kill me ; — kill me once again: "Long may they kiss each other, for this cure! “Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted, What bargains may I make, still to be sealing? 1 In Shakspeare's early plays we frequently meet the same image that is found in these early poems. Thus in Love's Labor's Lost: "Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright As doth thy face through tears of mine give light; 2 The custom of strewing houses with fragrant herbs was universal at a period when the constant recurrence of the plague habitnated families to the use of what they considered preventives. It |