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LXXXI.

Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die.
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen,)
Where breath most breathes,

even in the mouths of men.

FROM "THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM."

I.

Crabbed age and youth

Cannot live together;

Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare.

Youth is full of sport,

Age's breath is short,

Youth is nimble, age is lame;

Youth is hot and bold,

Age is weak and cold;

Youth is wild, and age is tame,

Age, I do abhor thee,

Youth, I do adore thee;

O, my love, my love is young! Age, I do defy thee;

O sweet shepherd, hie thee,

For methinks thou stay'st too long.

II.

As it fell upon a day,

In the merry month of May,

Sitting in a pleasant shade

Which a grove of myrtles made,

Beasts did leap, and birds did spring,
Every thing did banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone.

She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Lean'd her breast up-till a thorn,
And there sung the dolefull'st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity.
Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry,
Teru, Teru, by and by,
That to hear her so complain,
Scarce I could from tears refrain;
For her griefs so lively shown,
Made me think upon mine own.
Ah! thought I, thou mourn'st in vain!
None take pity on thy pain;

Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee;
Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee;

King Pandion, he is dead;

All thy friends are lapp'd in lead;

All thy fellow birds do sing,
Careless of thy sorrowing.

Even so, poor bird, like thee,
None alive will pity me.
Whilst as fickle fortune smil'd,
Thou and I were both beguil'd.

Every one that flatters thee,
Is no friend in misery.

Words are easy like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
Every man will be thy friend,
Whilst thou hast where with to spend;
But if store of crowns be scant,
No man will supply thy want.
If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call,
And with such like flattering,
"Pity but he were a king."
If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will entice;
But if fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown;
They that fawn'd on him before,
Use his company no more.
He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need,
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep.
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe.

MERCY.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath; it is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this scepter'd sway,

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself,

And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice.

SLEEP.

How many thousand of my poorest subjects

Are at this hour asleep! - O Sleep! O gentle Sleep!
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,

And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody:

Oh, thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case, or a common 'larum-bell?

Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast

Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamours in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?

Canst thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep,
No more;
and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

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Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep, -
To sleep! perchance to dream?

ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns,

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And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

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