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LOVE.

Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.
It is to be all made of sighs and tears,

It is to be all made of faith and service,
It is to be all made of fantasy,

All made of passion, and all made of wishes;
All adoration, duty, and observance,
All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance.

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!

Things base and vile, holding no quality,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.

The more thou dam'st it up, the more it burns :
The current, that with gentle murmur glides,

Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
But, when his fair course is not hindered,

He makes sweet music with the enamel'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage.

O, gentle Protheus, love's a mighty lord;
And hath so humbled me, as, I confess,

There is no woe to his correction,

Nor, to his service, no such joy on earth!
Now, no discourse, except it be of love;
Now, can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,
Upon the very naked name of love.

Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;
Being urg'd, a fine sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears :
What is it else? a madness most descreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.

Sweet love, I see, changing his property,
Turns to the sourest, and most deadly hate.

Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou would'st as soon go kindle fire with snow,
As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

The blood of youth burns not with such excess,
As gravity's revolt to wantonness.

A murd'rous guilt shews not itself more soon
Than love that would seem hid.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain :
But with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power;
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.

As in the sweetest bud

The eating canker dwells, so eating love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all.

None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd,
As wit turn'd fool: folly, in wisdom hatch'd,
Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school;
And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.

Was not this love, indeed?
We men may say more, swear more: but, indeed,
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.

Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

This weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched in ice: which with an hour's heat
Dissolves to water, and doth lose its form.

Ah me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth.
Fair soul,

In your fine frame hath love no quality?
If the quick fire of youth light not your mind,
You are no maiden, but a monument.

There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks, her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.

This is the very ecstacy of love;
Whose violent property foredoes itself,
And leads the will to desperate undertakings,
As oft as any passion under heaven,

That does afflict our natures.

She, sweet lady, dotes,

Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,

Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

All fancy sick she is, and pale of cheer
With sighs of love.

Hinder not my course:

I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,

And make a pastime of each weary step,

Till the last step have brought me to my love.

A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary

To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps; Much less shall she, that hath love's wings to fly.

When love begins to sicken and decay,

It useth an enforced ceremony.

Never durst poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs;
Prosperity's the very bond of love;

Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together
Affliction alters.

Reason thus with reason fetter :
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.

Love's heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,` Driving back shadows over lowring hills.

To be in love where scorn is bought with groans;
Coy looks, with heart-sore sighs; one fading mo-
ment's mirth,

With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights :
If haply won, perhaps, a hapless gain;
If lost, why then a grievous labour won.

Love is full of unbefitting strains;
All wanton as a child, skipping, and vain;
Form'd by the eye, and therefore like the eye,
Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms.

O brawling love! O loving hate!

O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep!

You thief of love! what, have you come by night,
And stol'n my love's heart from him?

Holy Saint Francis! what a change is here!
Is Rosaline, whom thou dost love so dear,
So soon forsaken ? young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.

In revenge of my contempt of love,

Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes,

And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.

My love doth so approve

him,

That even his stubbornness, his checks, and frowns, Have grace and favour in them.

I know not why

I love this youth; and I have heard you say,
Love's reason's without reason.

Even in so short a space, my woman's heart
Grossly grew captive to his honey words,
And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse.

Mine eyes

Were not in fault, for she was beautiful;

Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor mine heart, That thought her like her seeming; it had been vicious, To have mistrusted her.

Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins.

Helen, I love thee; by my life, I do :
I swear by that which I will lose for thee,
To prove him false, that says I love thee not.

Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,

That like a rude and savage man of Inde,
At the first opening of the gorgeous East,
Bows not his vassal head.

Oh, happy fair!

Your eyes are lode-stars, and your tongue' sweet air,

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