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THE TRUE AND THE FALSE.

HOW much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour which doth in it live:
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfuméd tincture of the roses,

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly

When summer's breath their maskéd buds discloses :

But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade ;

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

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IRED with all these, for restful death I cry,-
As, to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,

And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,

And captive good attending captain ill :

-Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,

Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

LIFE'S AUTUMN.

HAT time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet bird sang :
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by :

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

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THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH.

O longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it; for I love you so,

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,—

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

And mock you with me after I am gone.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

THE GARDEN OF LOVE.

ROM you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Yet not the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue,

Could make me any summer's story tell,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew ;
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you,—you pattern of all those.
Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

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