THE TRUE AND THE FALSE. HOW much more doth beauty beauteous seem, The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live: 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: When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth. C IRED with all these, for restful death I cry,- And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, 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 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, 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. THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH. O longer mourn for me when I am dead 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, 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 praise the deep vermilion in the rose; WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. |