The Golden Treasury. Various

Trip no further, pretty sweeting,

       Journeys end in lovers meeting—

       Every wise man's son doth know.

      What is love? 'tis not hereafter;

       Present mirth hath present laughter;

       What's to come is still unsure:

       In delay there lies no plenty,—

       Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,

       Youth's a stuff will not endure.

      W. Shakespeare

XXXVI

      AN HONEST AUTOLYCUS

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      Fine knacks for ladies, cheap, choice, brave, and new,

       Good penny-worths,—but money cannot move:

       I keep a fair but for the Fair to view;

       A beggar may be liberal of love.

       Though all my wares be trash, the heart is true—

       The heart is true.

      Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again;

       My trifles come as treasures from my mind;

       It is a precious jewel to be plain;

       Sometimes in shell the orient'st pearls we find:—

       Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain!

       Of me a grain!

      Anon.

XXXVII

      WINTER

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      When icicles hang by the wall

       And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

       And Tom bears logs into the hall,

       And milk comes frozen home in pail;

       When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,

       Then nightly sings the staring owl

       Tu-whit!

       Tu-who! A merry note!

       While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

      When all about the wind doth blow,

       And coughing drowns the parson's saw,

       And birds sit brooding in the snow,

       And Marian's nose looks red and raw;

       When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl—

       Then nightly sings the staring owl

       Tu-whit!

       Tu-who! A merry note!

       While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

      W. Shakespeare

XXXVIII

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      That time of year thou may'st in me behold

       When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

       Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

       Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang:

      In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

       As after sunset fadeth in the west,

       Which by and by black night doth take away,

       Death's second self, that seals up all in rest:

      In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,

       That on the ashes of his youth doth lie

       As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

       Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by:

      

      —This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

       To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

      W. Shakespeare

XXXIX

      MEMORY

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      When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

       I summon up remembrance of things past,

       I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

       And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste;

      Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

       For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

       And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe,

       And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight.

      Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

       And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

       The sad account of fore-bemoanéd moan,

       Which I new pay as if not paid before:

      —But if the while I think on thee, dear Friend,

       All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

      W. Shakespeare

XL

      SLEEP

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      Come, Sleep: O Sleep! the certain knot of peace,

       The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,

       The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,

       Th' indifferent judge between the high and low;

      With shield of proof shield me from out the prease

       Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw:

       O make in me those civil wars to cease;

       I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.

      

      Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,

       A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light,

       A rosy garland and a weary head:

       And if these things, as being thine in right,

      Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,

       Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.

      Sir P. Sidney

XLI

      REVOLUTIONS

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      Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore

       So do our minutes hasten to their end;

       Each changing place with that which goes before,

       In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

      Nativity, once in the main of light,

       Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,

       Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,