The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 3: Books for ChildrenLamb, Charles
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The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 3: Books for Children
Lamb, Charles
Children's poetry; Children's stories
of respect to his guests, and because Romeo had borne himself like a
gentleman, and all tongues in Verona bragged of him to be a virtuous
and well-governed youth. Tybalt, forced to be patient against his
will, restrained himself, but swore that this vile Mountague should at
another time dearly pay for his intrusion.
The dancing being done, Romeo watched the place where the lady stood;
and under favour of his masking habit, which might seem to excuse in
part the liberty, he presumed in the gentlest manner to take her by
the hand, calling it a shrine, which if he prophaned by touching it,
he was a blushing pilgrim, and would kiss it for atonement. "Good
pilgrim," answered the lady, "your devotion shews by far too mannerly
and too courtly: saints have hands, which pilgrims may touch, but kiss
not." "Have not saints lips, and pilgrims too?" said Romeo. "Aye,"
said the lady, "lips which they must use in prayer." "O then, my dear
saint," said Romeo, "hear my prayer and grant it, lest I despair." In
such like allusions and loving conceits they were engaged, when the
lady was called away to her mother. And Romeo enquiring who her mother
was, discovered that the lady whose peerless beauty he was so much
struck with, was young Juliet, daughter and heir to the lord Capulet,
the great enemy of the Mountagues; and that he had unknowingly engaged
his heart to his foe. This troubled him, but it could not dissuade
him from loving. As little rest had Juliet, when she found that the
gentleman that she had been talking with was Romeo and a Mountague,
for she had been suddenly smit with the same hasty and inconsiderate
passion for Romeo, which he had conceived for her; and a prodigious
birth of love it seemed to her, that she must love her enemy, and that
her affections should settle there, where family considerations should
induce her chiefly to hate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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