BEAUTY AND STRENGTH TRANSITORY.

161

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.

Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.
Even like a man new haled from the rack,
So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;
And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,
Nestor-like aged in an age of care,

Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.

Sonnet, xii. lx.

These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,
Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent ;

Weak shoulders, overborne with burthening grief,

And pithless arms, like to a wither'd vine
That droops his sapless branches to the ground:
Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,
Unable to support this lump of clay,

Swift-winged with desire to get a grave.

First Part of King Henry VI., Act ii. Sc. 5, l. 1.

Death lies on her like an untimely frost

Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

Romeo and Juliet, Act iv. Sc. 5, 1. 28.

The Real Worth of Beauty.

Ye tradeful merchants, that with weary toile
Do seek most pretious things to make your gaine;
And both the Indias of their treasure spoile;
What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine ?
For loe! my love doth in her selfe containe
All this world's riches that may farre be found;

If saphyres, loe! her eies be saphyres plaine;

If rubies, loe! her lips be rubies sound;

If pearles, her teeth be pearles, both pure and round;
If ivorie, her forehead yvory weene;

If gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;
If silver, her faire hands are silver sheene:
But that which fairest is, but few behold,
Her mind, adornd with vertues manifold.

EDMUND SPENSER, Sonnet, xv.

'Tis only in God's garden1 men may reap
True joy and blessing.

SOPHOCLES, Fragments, 1. 298.

O

HOW much more doth beauty beauteous seem

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

1 How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the rivers' side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. Numbers xxiv. 5, 6.

THE REAL WORTH OF BEAUTY.

163

For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses :
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.

In nature there's no blemish but the mind;
None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind:
Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous evil
Are empty trunks o'erflourish'd by the devil.

Sonnet, liv.

Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 401.

The Instability of Earthly Happiness.

Unto gods alone

Nor age can come, nor destined hour of death.
All else the almighty ruler, Time, sweeps on.
Earth's strength shall wither, wither strength of limb,
And trust decays and mistrust grows apace;1
And the same spirit lasts not among them

That once were friends, nor joineth state with state.

To these at once, to those in after years,

Sweet things turn bitter, then turn sweet again.

SOPHOCLES, Edipus at Colonos, 1. 607.

THEN was I as a tree

Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night
A storm or robbery, call it what you will,

Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
And left me bare to weather.

Cymbeline, Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 60.

There's nothing in this world can make me joy:

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale

Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man ;

I Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish. - Psalm xlix. 12.

THE INSTABILITY OF EARTHLY HAPPINESS.

And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste,
That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.

165

King John, Act iii. Sc. 4, l. 107.

I have lived long enough: my way of life Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf; And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have: but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 3, 1. 22.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle !
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 5, 1. 19.

When Fortune in her shift and change of mood Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down, Not one accompanying his declining foot.

Timon of Athens, Act i. Sc. 1, 1. 84.