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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.

IV. Shakespeare

X

Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note

Unto the sweet bird's throat-Come hither, come hither, come hither! Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats

And pleased with what he getsCome hither, come hither, come hither! Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

IV. Shakespeare

ΧΙ

It was a lover and his lass

With a hey and a ho, and a hey nonino!
That o'er the green corn-field did pass
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing hey ding a ding:
Sweet lovers love the Spring.

Between the acres of the rye
These pretty country folks would lie:
This carol they began that hour,
How that life was but a flower:

And therefore take the present time

With a hey and a ho and a hey nonino! For love is crownéd with the prime In spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing hey ding a ding: Sweet lovers love the Spring.

W. Shakespeare

XII

PRESENT IN ABSENCE

Absence, hear thou this protestation
Against thy strength,
Distance, and length;

Do what thou canst for alteration :
For hearts of truest mettle

Absence doth join, and Time doth settle

Who loves a mistress of such quality,
His mind hath found

Affection's ground

Beyond time, place, and mortality.

To hearts that cannot vary Absence is present, Time doth tarry.

By absence this good means I gain,
That I can catch her,

Where none can match her,
In some close corner of my brain :
There I embrace and kiss her;
And so I both enjoy and miss her.

J. Donne

XIII

VIA AMORIS

High-way, since you my chief Parnassus be,
And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet,
Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet
More oft than to a chamber-melody,-

Now, blessed you bear onward blessed me
To her, where I my heart, safe-left, shall meet;
My Muse and I must you of duty greet
With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully;
Be you still fair, honour'd by public heed;
By no encroachment wrong'd, nor time forgot;
Nor blamed for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed;
And that you know I envy you no lot

Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss,-
Hundreds of years you Stella's feet may kiss!

Sir P. Sidney

XIV

ABSENCE

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend
Nor services to do, till you require :

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end-hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour

When you have bid your servant once adieu :

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are, how happy you make those ;-
So true a fool is love, that in your will
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

W. Shakespeare

XV

How like a winter hath my absence been.
From Thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,
What old December's bareness every where !
And yet this time removed was summer's time:
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit ;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;

:

Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.
W. Shakespeare

XVI

A CONSOLATION

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate;

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possest,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least ;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on Thee-and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. IV. Shakespeare

XVII

THE UNCHANGEABLE

O never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify:
As easy might I from myself depart

As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie;
That is my home of love; if I have ranged,
Like him that travels, I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stain'd
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose in it thou art my all.
IV. Shakespeare

XVIII

To me, fair Friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride;
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd
In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;

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