Angelo.

Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.

Isabella.

Alas! alas!

Why all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy: How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new-made.

From Measure for Measure.

OVER hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,

In those freckles live their savours :
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

From Midsummer-Night's Dream.

ARE not these woods

More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The season's difference; as, the icy fang,

And churlish chiding of the winter's wind;
Which when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say,—
This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity;

Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from publick haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

REASON thus with life,

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art,
(Servile to all the skiey influences),

That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art death's fool,

For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,

And yet runn'st toward him still: Thou art not noble ; For all the accommodations that thou bear'st

Are nurs'd by baseness; Thou art by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm: Thy best of rest is sleep,

And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st

Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains

That issue out of dust: Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get,
And what thou hast, forgett'st.

From Measure for Measure.

PERSEVERANCE, dear my lord,

Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow,

Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,

That one by one pursue: If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,

Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindermost ;-

For time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,

And Farewell goes out sighing.