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
It being midnight, Romeo with his companions departed; but they soon
missed him, for unable to stay away from the house where he had left
his heart, he leaped the wall of an orchard which was at the back of
Juliet's house. Here he had not been long, ruminating on his new love,
when Juliet appeared above at a window, through which her exceeding
beauty seemed to break like the light of the sun in the east; and the
moon, which shone in the orchard with a faint light, appeared to Romeo
as if sick and pale with grief at the superior lustre of this new
sun. And she leaning her hand upon her cheek, he passionately wished
himself a glove upon that hand, that he might touch her cheek. She all
this while thinking herself alone, fetched a deep sigh, and exclaimed,
"Ah me!" Romeo, enraptured to hear her speak, said softly, and unheard
by her, "O speak again, bright angel, for such you appear, being over
my head, like a winged messenger from heaven whom mortals fall back to
gaze upon." She, unconscious of being overheard, and full of the new
passion which that night's adventure had given birth to, called upon
her lover by name (whom she supposed absent): "O Romeo, Romeo!" said
she, "wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father, and refuse thy name,
for my sake; or if thou wilt not, be but my sworn love, and I no
longer will be a Capulet." Romeo, having this encouragement, would
fain have spoken, but he was desirous of hearing more; and the lady
continued her passionate discourse with herself (as she thought),
still chiding Romeo for being Romeo and a Mountague, and wishing him
some other name, or that he would put away that hated name, and for
that name, which was no part of himself, he should take all herself.
At this loving word Romeo could no longer refrain, but taking up the
dialogue as if her words had been addressed to him personally, and not
merely in fancy, he bade her call him Love, or by whatever other name
she pleased, for he was no longer Romeo, if that name was displeasing
to her. Juliet, alarmed to hear a man's voice in the garden, did not
at first know who it was, that by favour of the night and darkness
had thus stumbled upon the discovery of her secret; but when he
spoke again, though her ears had not yet drunk a hundred words of
that tongue's uttering, yet so nice is a lover's hearing, that she
immediately knew him to be young Romeo, and she expostulated with him
on the danger to which he had exposed himself by climbing the orchard
walls, for if any of her kinsmen should find him there, it would be
death to him, being a Mountague. "Alack," said Romeo, "there is more
peril in your eye, than in twenty of their swords. Do you but look
kind upon me, lady, and I am proof against their enmity. Better my
life should be ended by their hate, than that hated life should be
prolonged, to live without your love." "How came you into this place,"
said Juliet, "and by whose direction?" "Love directed me," answered
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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