LET me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. HOW oft, when thou, my music, music play’st, Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway’st The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand! To be so tickled, they would change their state And situation with those dancing chips, O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, Making dead wood more blest than living lips. Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. FULL many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face, And from the forlorn world his visage hide, Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: Even so my sun one early morn did shine With all-triumphant splendour on my brow, But out, alack! he was but one hour mine; The region cloud hath masked him from me now. Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth: Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth. THE expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait On purpose laid to make the taker mad; Mad in pursuit and in possession so; Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. All this the world well knows; yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. FANCY TELL me where is Fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. It is engendered in the eyes; With gazing fed; and Fancy dies In the cradle where it lies: Let us all ring Fancy’s knell; I’ll begin it,—Ding, dong, bell. Ding, dong, bell. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE