Golden Leaves from the British and American Dramatic Poets

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Bruce and Huntington, 1865 - 562 pages

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Page 25 - It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul, — Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars ! — It is the cause.
Page 35 - I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation ; nor the musician's which is fantastical ; nor the courtier's, which is proud ; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious ; nor the lawyer's, which is politic ; nor the lady's, which is nice ; nor the lover's, which is all these...
Page 30 - O, reason not the need : our basest beggars Are in the poorest thing superfluous : Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beast's : thou art a lady ; If only to go warm were gorgeous, Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st, Which scarcely keeps thee warm.
Page 19 - Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny What I have spoke: but farewell compliment! Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay,' And I will take thy word: yet, if thou swear'st, Thou mayst prove false: at lovers' perjuries, They say, Jove laughs.
Page 35 - All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Page 46 - Hear him but reason in divinity, And, all-admiring, with an inward wish You would desire the king were made a prelate...
Page 29 - Hear, Nature, hear ! dear goddess, hear ! Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend To make this creature fruitful ! Into her womb convey sterility ! Dry up in her the organs of increase, And from her derogate body never spring A babe to honour her ! If she must teem...
Page 27 - With a bare bodkin ? who would 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, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of ? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all...
Page 47 - Now entertain conjecture of a time, When creeping murmur, and the poring dark, Fills the wide vessel of the universe. From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fix'd sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch...
Page 18 - tis not to me she speaks: Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night.

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