Shakespeare & Donne
I felt like the Olde Englishe today, sort of.
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriag of true minds admit impediments
1. Let me not to the marriage of true minds
2. Admit impediments. Love is not love
3. Which alters when it alteration finds,
4. Or bends with the remover to remove:
5. O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
6. That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
7. It is the star to every wandering bark,
8. Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
9. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
10. Within his bending sickle's compass come;
11. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
12. But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
13. If this be error and upon me proved,
14. I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes
1. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
2. Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
3. If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
4. If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
5. I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
6. But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
7. And in some perfumes is there more delight
8. Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
9. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
10. That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
11. I grant I never saw a goddess go,
12. My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
13. And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
14. As any she belied with false compare.
Sonnet 54: Oh, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
1. O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
2. By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
3. The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
4. For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.
5. The canker blooms have full as deep a dye
6. As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
7. Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
8. When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
9. But, for their virtue only is their show,
10. They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;
11. Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
12. Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
13. And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
14. When that shall vade, my verse distills your truth.
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blessed.
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
It is mightiest in the mightiest,
It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
An attribute to awe and majesty.
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself.
And earthly power dost the become likest God's,
Where mercy seasons justice.
Therefore Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice we all must see salvation,
We all do pray for mercy
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.
I have spoke thus much to mittgate the justice of thy plea,
Which if thou dost follow,
This strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentance gainst the merchant there.
Once more into the breach: Henry's speech at Harfleur
Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect...
(Couldn't find the whole speech, unfortunately.) Also look for: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" , Shylock's "to bait fish withal" speech from The Merchant of Venice, and, and, and, oh, who am I kidding, I can't tell you everything, right?
John Donne
Just the one from Donne because there's a hell of a lot of Shakespeare up there anyway.
The Ecstacy
WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,
A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.
Our hands were firmly cemented
By a fast balm, which thence did spring ;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string.
So to engraft our hands, as yet
Was all the means to make us one ;
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.
As, 'twixt two equal armies, Fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls-which to advance their state,
Were gone out-hung 'twixt her and me.
And whilst our souls negotiate there,
We like sepulchral statues lay ;
All day, the same our postures were,
And we said nothing, all the day.
If any, so by love refined,
That he soul's language understood,
And by good love were grown all mind,
Within convenient distance stood,
He-though he knew not which soul spake,
Because both meant, both spake the same-
Might thence a new concoction take,
And part far purer than he came.
This ecstasy doth unperplex
(We said) and tell us what we love ;
We see by this, it was not sex ;
We see, we saw not, what did move :
But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things they know not what,
Love these mix'd souls doth mix again,
And makes both one, each this, and that.
A single violet transplant,
The strength, the colour, and the size-
All which before was poor and scant-
Redoubles still, and multiplies.
When love with one another so
Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.
We then, who are this new soul, know,
Of what we are composed, and made,
For th' atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.
But, O alas ! so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear?
They are ours, though not we ; we are
Th' intelligences, they the spheres.
We owe them thanks, because they thus
Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses' force to us,
Nor are dross to us, but allay.
On man heaven's influence works not so,
But that it first imprints the air ;
For soul into the soul may flow,
Though it to body first repair.
As our blood labours to beget
Spirits, as like souls as it can ;
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot, which makes us man ;
So must pure lovers' souls descend
To affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.
To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look ;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.
And if some lover, such as we,
Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
Small change when we're to bodies gone.
I couldn't find the original spelling version, "The Extasie", unfortunately. I know three verses of this by heart, though; my mother had it painted on the walls of my parents' old bedroom.
When love, with one another so
Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul which thence doth flow
Defects of loneliness controls.
To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look:
Love's mysteries in souls do grow
But yet the body is his book.
So must pure lovers' souls descend
T'affections, and to faculties;
Which sense may reach and apprehend
Else a great prince in prison lies.
GREAT poem. :p such a good message, too... hehehe.
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriag of true minds admit impediments
1. Let me not to the marriage of true minds
2. Admit impediments. Love is not love
3. Which alters when it alteration finds,
4. Or bends with the remover to remove:
5. O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
6. That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
7. It is the star to every wandering bark,
8. Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
9. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
10. Within his bending sickle's compass come;
11. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
12. But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
13. If this be error and upon me proved,
14. I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes
1. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
2. Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
3. If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
4. If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
5. I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
6. But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
7. And in some perfumes is there more delight
8. Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
9. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
10. That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
11. I grant I never saw a goddess go,
12. My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
13. And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
14. As any she belied with false compare.
Sonnet 54: Oh, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
1. O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
2. By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
3. The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
4. For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.
5. The canker blooms have full as deep a dye
6. As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
7. Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
8. When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
9. But, for their virtue only is their show,
10. They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;
11. Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
12. Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
13. And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
14. When that shall vade, my verse distills your truth.
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blessed.
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
It is mightiest in the mightiest,
It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
An attribute to awe and majesty.
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself.
And earthly power dost the become likest God's,
Where mercy seasons justice.
Therefore Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice we all must see salvation,
We all do pray for mercy
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.
I have spoke thus much to mittgate the justice of thy plea,
Which if thou dost follow,
This strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentance gainst the merchant there.
Once more into the breach: Henry's speech at Harfleur
Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect...
(Couldn't find the whole speech, unfortunately.) Also look for: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" , Shylock's "to bait fish withal" speech from The Merchant of Venice, and, and, and, oh, who am I kidding, I can't tell you everything, right?
John Donne
Just the one from Donne because there's a hell of a lot of Shakespeare up there anyway.
The Ecstacy
WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,
A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.
Our hands were firmly cemented
By a fast balm, which thence did spring ;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string.
So to engraft our hands, as yet
Was all the means to make us one ;
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.
As, 'twixt two equal armies, Fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls-which to advance their state,
Were gone out-hung 'twixt her and me.
And whilst our souls negotiate there,
We like sepulchral statues lay ;
All day, the same our postures were,
And we said nothing, all the day.
If any, so by love refined,
That he soul's language understood,
And by good love were grown all mind,
Within convenient distance stood,
He-though he knew not which soul spake,
Because both meant, both spake the same-
Might thence a new concoction take,
And part far purer than he came.
This ecstasy doth unperplex
(We said) and tell us what we love ;
We see by this, it was not sex ;
We see, we saw not, what did move :
But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things they know not what,
Love these mix'd souls doth mix again,
And makes both one, each this, and that.
A single violet transplant,
The strength, the colour, and the size-
All which before was poor and scant-
Redoubles still, and multiplies.
When love with one another so
Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.
We then, who are this new soul, know,
Of what we are composed, and made,
For th' atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.
But, O alas ! so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear?
They are ours, though not we ; we are
Th' intelligences, they the spheres.
We owe them thanks, because they thus
Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses' force to us,
Nor are dross to us, but allay.
On man heaven's influence works not so,
But that it first imprints the air ;
For soul into the soul may flow,
Though it to body first repair.
As our blood labours to beget
Spirits, as like souls as it can ;
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot, which makes us man ;
So must pure lovers' souls descend
To affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.
To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look ;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.
And if some lover, such as we,
Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
Small change when we're to bodies gone.
I couldn't find the original spelling version, "The Extasie", unfortunately. I know three verses of this by heart, though; my mother had it painted on the walls of my parents' old bedroom.
When love, with one another so
Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul which thence doth flow
Defects of loneliness controls.
To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look:
Love's mysteries in souls do grow
But yet the body is his book.
So must pure lovers' souls descend
T'affections, and to faculties;
Which sense may reach and apprehend
Else a great prince in prison lies.
GREAT poem. :p such a good message, too... hehehe.