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That strain again;—it had a dying fall:

Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing, and giving odour.-Enough; no more;
'Tis not so sweet now, as it was before.

O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!
That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, naught enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soever,

But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy,
That it alone is high-fantastical.

Woman's Love.

DUKE, CESARIO.

Duke. There is no woman's sides,
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart: no woman's heart
So big, to hold so much; they lack retention.
Alas, their love may be called appetite,-
No motion of the liver, but the palate,-
That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much: make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me,
And that I owe Olivia.

Cesario. Ay, but I know,—

Duke. What dost thou know?

Cesario. Too well what love women to men may owe:

In faith, they are as true of heart as we.

My father had a daughter loved a man,

As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,

I should your lordship.

Duke. And what's her history?

Cesario. A blank, my lord: she never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,

Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought;
And with a green and yellow melancholy,

She sat like patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief. 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.

MACBETH.

The Character of MACBETH.

Lady Macbeth... . Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and

shalt be

What thou art promised.-Yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness,

To catch the nearest way.
Art not without ambition;
The illness should attend it.

Thou wouldst be great; but without

What thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,

And

yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'dst have, great Glamis, That which cries, Thus thou must do, if thou have it; And that which rather thou dost fear to do,

Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;

And chastise, with the valour of my tongue,

All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.

MACBETH'S Soliloquy on DUNCAN's Murder.

If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly. If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,-
We'd jump the life to come.-But, in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off:

And pity, like a naked new-born babe
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin horsed

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind.-I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,

And falls on the other side.

Outliving Reputation.

I have lived long enough: my way of life Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf: And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not.

To-morrow.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays, have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow: a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

Youthful Friendship.

INJURIOUS Hermia! most ungrateful maid! Have you consṛired, have you with these contrived

To bait me with this foul derision?

Is all the counsel, that we two have shared,

The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us,-O, and is all forgot?

All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence ?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,

Have with our neelds created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double-cherry, seeming parted;
But yet a union in partition,

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem:
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crownèd with one crest.

Poetic Imaginings.

Lovers, and madmen, have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;

That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation, and a name.

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