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A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.
Sir Joshua Reynolds

LXXVI



Why is my verse so barren of new pride,

So far from variation or quick change?

Why with the time do I not glance aside

To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

O! know sweet love I always write of you,

And you and love are still my argument;

So all my best is dressing old words new,

Spending again what is already spent:

  For as the sun is daily new and old,

  So is my love still telling what is told.

 	--William Shakespeare

XI



As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow\'st,

In one of thine, from that which thou departest;

And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow\'st,

Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest,

Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;

Without this folly, age, and cold decay:

If all were minded so, the times should cease

And threescore year would make the world away.

Let those whom nature hath not made for store,

Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:

Look, whom she best endow\'d, she gave thee more;

Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:

  She carv\'d thee for her seal, and meant thereby,

  Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXVII



Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,

And with his presence grace impiety,

That sin by him advantage should achieve,

And lace itself with his society? 

Why should false painting imitate his cheek,

And steel dead seeming of his living hue?

Why should poor beauty indirectly seek

Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?

Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,

Beggar\'d of blood to blush through lively veins?

For she hath no exchequer now but his,

And proud of many, lives upon his gains.

  O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had

  In days long since, before these last so bad.

 	--William Shakespeare