Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Sonnet 73: That time of life thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds 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 nourished by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong To love that well which thou must leave ere long. There are no better similes for the oncoming of age and death, than the sere leaf trembling in the wind, the twilight of the setting sun, the expiring flame. Almost all the comparisons from Nature in his plays are original, and rather keen and lightning-like than elaborate, often with the terseness of proverbs; The strawberry grows underneath the nettle. (_Henry V._) Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep. (_Henry VI._) The waters swell before a boisterous storm. (_Richard III._) Sometimes they are heaped up, like Calderon's, 'making it' (true love) Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up. (_Midsummer Night's Dream._) Compared with Homer's they are very bold, and shew an astonishing play of imagination; in place of the naive simplicity and naturalness of antiquity, this modern genius gives us a dazzling display of wit and thought. To quote only short examples[3]: 'Open as day,' 'deaf as the sea,' 'poor as winter,' 'chaste as unsunn'd snow.' He ranges all Nature. These are characteristic examples: King Richard doth himself appear As doth the blushing discontented sun From out the fiery portal of the east, When he perceives the envious clouds are bent To dim his glory and to stain the track Of his bright passage to the occident. (_Richard II._) Since the more fair crystal is the sky, The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly. As when the golden sun salutes the morn, And, having gilt the ocean with his beams, Gallops the zodiac in his glistering coach And overlooks the highest peering hills, So Tamora. (_Titus Andronicus._) As all the world is cheered by the sun, So I by that; it is my day, my life. (_Richard III._)