Echo, daughter of the air, Babbling guest of rocks and hills, Knows the name of my fierce fair, And sounds the accents of my ills: Each thing pities my despair, Whilst that she her lover kills. Whilst that she, O cruel maid! Doth me and my love despise, My life's flourish is decay'd And well he ends for love who dies. SONG. [In "Hymen's Triumph."] LOVE is a sickness full of woes, A plant that with most cutting grows ; Why so? More we enjoy it, more it dies; Love is a torment of the mind, A tempest everlasting; And Jove hath made it of a kind Not well, nor full, nor fasting : More we enjoy it, more it dies; WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, Born 1564, died 1616. SONNET. [ In "England's Helicon," and "Love's Labour Lost."] On a day, alack the day! Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom, passing fair, Playing in the wanton air. Through the velvet leaves the wind All unseen 'gan passage find, That the lover, sick to death, Wish'd himself the heaven's breath. 66 ‘Air," quoth he, "thy cheeks may blow; Air, would I might triumph so! But, alack! my hand is sworn Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn; Vow, alack ! for youth unmeet, Youth so apt to pluck a sweet; Do not call it sin in me, That I am forsworn for thee: Thou for whom e'en Jove would swear Juno but an Æthiop were ; And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love." SONG. [In "Much Ado about Nothing."] SIGH no more, ladies, sigh no more; Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never : Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny; Sing no more ditties, sing no mo The fraud of men was ever so, Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny; Converting all your sounds of woe Into, hey! nonny, nonny. SONG. [In "Twelfth Night."] COME away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath, I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, My part of death no one so true Did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet On my black coffin let there be strown ; Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown. A thousand, thousand sighs to save, Lay me, O! where Sad true lover ne'er find my grave, SONG. [From "The Two Gentlemen of Verona."] "WHO is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her?" Holy, fair, and wise is she; The heavens such grace did lend her, That she might admired be. "Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness." To help him of his blindness; ་ Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling; SONG *. TAKE, oh! take those lips away Seals of love, but seal'd in vain! Hide, oh! hide those hills of snow But first set my poor heart free, Bound in those icy chains by thee! *This song has been ascribed to Fletcher, in whose tragedy of Rollo Duke of Normandy, printed in 1640, both stanzas are to be found. As the first, however, occurs in Shakspeare's play of Measure for Measure they are both claimed for him by Mr. Malone.-ELLIS. |