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CXLVIII



O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,

Which have no correspondence with true sight;

Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,

That censures falsely what they see aright?

If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,

What means the world to say it is not so?

If it be not, then love doth well denote

Love\'s eye is not so true as all men\'s: no,

How can it? O! how can Love\'s eye be true, 

That is so vexed with watching and with tears?

No marvel then, though I mistake my view;

The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.

  O cunning Love! with tears thou keep\'st me blind,

  Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXIX



O! call not me to justify the wrong

That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;

Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue:

Use power with power, and slay me not by art,

Tell me thou lov\'st elsewhere; but in my sight,

Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:

What need\'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might

Is more than my o\'erpress\'d defence can bide?

Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows

Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;

And therefore from my face she turns my foes,

That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:

  Yet do not so; but since I am near slain, 

  Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.

 	--William Shakespeare

This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a whimper.
T. S. Eliot

X



For shame! deny that thou bear\'st love to any,

Who for thy self art so unprovident.

Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov\'d of many,

But that thou none lov\'st is most evident:

For thou art so possess\'d with murderous hate,

That \'gainst thy self thou stick\'st not to conspire,

Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:

Shall hate be fairer lodg\'d than gentle love?

Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:

  Make thee another self for love of me,

  That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

 	--William Shakespeare