XIII



O! that you were your self; but, love you are

No longer yours, than you your self here live:

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give:

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination; then you were

Yourself again, after yourself's decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. 

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold,

Against the stormy gusts of winter's day

And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

  O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,

  You had a father: let your son say so.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXIII



How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,

Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds

With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st

The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,

Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,

To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,

Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,

At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!

To be so tickled, they would change their state 

And situation with those dancing chips,

O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,

Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.

  Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,

  Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

 	--William Shakespeare