The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
The glow-worm shews the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his ineffectual fire.
The snail, whose tender horns being hit, Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain, And there, all smother'd up in shade, doth sit, Long after fearing to creep forth again.
Whilst lions war, and battle for their dens,
Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.
The lion, dying, thrusteth forth his paw,
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
Mark the poor wretch, to overshut his troubles,
How he out-runs the wind, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musits through the which he goes,
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.
Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell;
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell;
And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;
Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear.
For there his smell with others being mingled,
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt;
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;
Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,
As if another chase were in the skies.
By this, poor Wat, far off, upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs, with listening ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still;
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;
And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore-sick, that hears the passing bell.
Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way;
Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
For misery is trodden on by many,
And being low, never relieved by any.
My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'dh, so sanded; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn. 7—iv. 1.
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them,
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark: Or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them,
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
The flews are the large chaps of a hound, marked with small spots.
Methought, he bore him in the thickest troop,
As doth a bear, encompass'd round with dogs;
Who having pinch'd a few, and made them cry,
The rest stand all aloof, and bark at him.
I was with Hercules, and Cadmus, once,
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,—
Being native burghers of this desert city,—
Should, in their own confines, with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored.
The melancholy Jaques grieves at that.-
To-day, my lord of Amiens, and myself,
Did steal behind him, as he lay along
Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook, that brawls along this wood:
To the which place a poor sequester'd stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.
But what said Jaques ?
Did he not moralize this spectacle? .
O, yes, into a thousand similes.
First, for his weeping in the needlessk stream;
"Poor deer," quoth he, "thou mak'st a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which had too much :" Then, being alone,
Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends;
“'T is right,” quoth he; "thus misery doth part
The flux of company :" Anon, a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,
And never stays to greet him; “ Ay," quoth Jaques, Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
'Tis just the fashion: Wherefore do you look Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?"
The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait.
This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses. This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet', does approve,
By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, buttress,
Nor coigne of vantage, but this bird hath made
His pendent bed, and procreant cradle: Where they
Most breed and haunt, I have observ'd, the air
Is delicate.
The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
The stream that wanted not a supply of moisture.
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds, methought, would open and shew riches Ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak'd,
Thine eye would emulate the diamond. - 3-iii. 3.
Posthumus anchors upon Imogen;
And she, like harmless lightning, throws her eye
On him, her brothers, me, her master; hitting
Each object with a joy.
Thou tell'st me, there is murder in mine eye: "T is pretty, sure, and very probable,
That eyes,—that are the frail'st and softest things, Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
That this distemper'd messenger of wet,
The many-coloured Iris, rounds thine eyem ? 11—i. 3.
Where is any author in the world, Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
There is something exquisitely beautiful in this representation of that suffusion of colours which glimmers around the sight when the eye-lashes are wet with tears.
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