The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) π
The world will be thy widow and still weep,
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep,
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it:
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
10
For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any
Who for thy self art so unprovident.
Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lov'st is most evident:
For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate,
That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire:
O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,
Shall hate be fairer lodged than
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- Author: William Shakespeare
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ββLo, all these trophies of affections hot, Of pensived and subdued desires the tender, Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not, But yield them up where I myself must render-That is, to you, my origin and ender;
For these, of force, must your oblations be, Since I their altar, you enpatron me.
ββO then advance of yours that phraseless hand Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise; Take all these similes to your own command, Hallowed with sighs that burning lungs did raise; What me your minister for you obeys
Works under you; and to your audit comes Their distract parcels in combined sums.
ββLo, this device was sent me from a nun, Or sister sanctified, of holiest note,
Which late her noble suit in court did shun, Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote; For she was sought by spirits of richest coat, But kept cold distance, and did thence remove To spend her living in eternal love.
ββBut, O my sweet, what labour isβt to leave The thing we have not, mastβring what not strives, Playing the place which did no form receive, Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves!
She that her fame so to herself contrives, The scars of battle scapeth by the flight, And makes her absence valiant, not her might.
ββO pardon me in that my boast is true!
The accident which brought me to her eye Upon the moment did her force subdue,
And now she would the caged cloister fly.
Religious love put out religionβs eye.
Not to be tempted, would she be immured, And now to tempt all liberty procured.
ββHow mighty then you are, O hear me tell!
The broken bosoms that to me belong
Have emptied all their fountains in my well, And mine I pour your ocean all among.
I strong oβer them, and you oβer me being strong, Must for your victory us all congest,
As compound love to physic your cold breast.
ββMy parts had powβr to charm a sacred nun, Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,
Believed her eyes when they tβassail begun, All vows and consecrations giving place, O most potential love, vow, bond, nor space, In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine, For thou art all, and all things else are thine.
ββWhen thou impressest, what are precepts worth Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame, How coldly those impediments stand forth, Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!
Loveβs arms are peace, βgainst rule, βgainst sense, βgainst shame.
And sweetens, in the suffβring pangs it bears, The aloes of all forces, shocks and fears.
ββNow all these hearts that do on mine depend, Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine, And supplicant their sighs to your extend, To leave the battβry that you make βgainst mine, Lending soft audience to my sweet design, And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath, That shall prefer and undertake my troth.β
βThis said, his watβry eyes he did dismount, Whose sights till then were levelled on my face; Each cheek a river running from a fount With brinish current downward flowed apace.
O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!
Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses That flame through water which their hue encloses.
βO father, what a hell of witchcraft lies In the small orb of one particular tear!
But with the inundation of the eyes
What rocky heart to water will not wear?
What breast so cold that is not warmed here?
O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath, Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.
βFor lo, his passion, but an art of craft, Even there resolved my reason into tears; There my white stole of chastity I daffed, Shook off my sober guards and civil fears; Appear to him as he to me appears,
All melting; though our drops this diffβrence bore: His poisoned me, and mine did him restore.
βIn him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives, Of burning blushes or of weeping water, Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves, In eitherβs aptness, as it best deceives, To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes, Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows; βThat not a heart which in his level came Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim, Showing fair nature is both kind and tame; And, veiled in them, did win whom he would maim.
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim; When he most burned in heart-wished luxury, He preached pure maid and praised cold chastity.
βThus merely with the garment of a Grace The naked and concealed fiend he covered, That thβ unexperient gave the tempter place, Which, like a cherubin, above them hovered.
Who, young and simple, would not be so lovered?
Ay me, I fell, and yet do question make What I should do again for such a sake.
βO, that infected moisture of his eye,
O, that false fire which in his cheek so glowed, O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly, O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed, O, all that borrowed motion, seeming owed, Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed, And new pervert a reconciled maid.β
THE END
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