""T is true, 't is true; thus was Adonis slain; 66 Had I been tooth'd like him I must confess My youth with his; the more am I accurst." She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes, Where, lo! two lamps, burnt out, in darkness lies: A thousand times, and now no more reflect; "Wonder of time," quoth she, "this is my spite, That you being dead the day should yet be light. "Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy, Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend; That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe. "It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud; Bud and be blasted in a breathing while; The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'da The strongest body shall it make most weak, "It shall be sparing, and too full of riot, Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures"; Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures: Make the young old, the old become a child. a O'erstraw'd-o'erstrewed. Measures-grave dances suited to age. "It shall suspect where is no cause of fear; And most deceiving when it seems most just; "It shall be cause of war and dire events, Sith in his prime death doth my love destroy, And says, within her bosom it shall dwell, She crops the stalk, and in the breach appears "Poor flower," quoth she, "this was thy father's guise, eyes: To grow unto himself was his desire, And so 't is thine; but know, it is as good "Here was thy father's bed, here in my breast; Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love's flower." Thus weary of the world, away she hies, Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen THE love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety". The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater my duty would show greater: meantime, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship; to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness. Your Lordship's in all duty, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Moiety. In 'Henry IV., Part I.,' and in Lear,' Shakspere uses moiety as it is here used, meaning a portion, not a half. POEMS. |