[From As You Like It.]

LIFE'S THEATRE.

ALL the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, [arms. Mewling and puking in his nurse's And then, the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then, the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, the soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel;

Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,

In fair round belly, with good capon

lined,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal

cut,

Is second childishness, and mere o livion:

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

[From As You Like It.]
INGRATITUDE.

BLOW, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude!
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the
green holly:

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:

Then heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot!
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remembered not.
"Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho, &c."

[From Hamlet.]

TO BE, OR NOT TO BE.

tory,

sleep

But do not dull thy palm with enter tertainment

Of each new-hatched, unpledged com rade. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man; And they in France, of the best rank and station,

Are most select and generous, chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend;

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

At length broke under me; and now has left me,

Weary and old with service, to the mercy

Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.

Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!

[From Measure for Measure.]
FEAR OF DEATH.

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world: or to be worse than worst

Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts

Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life,

That age, ache, penury, and impris

onment

Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death!

[From The Tempest.]

END OF ALL EARTHLY GLORY. OUR revels now are ended: these our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,