Life and Existence

Refrain tonight; And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence: the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature.

See, what a grace was seated on this brow; Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself, An eye like Mars, to threaten and command, A station like the herald Mercury New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill, A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man.

At your age The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble.

Why, let the stricken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play; For some must watch, while some must sleep: So runs the world away.

A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards Hast ta’en with equal thanks.

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.

O! what a noble mind is here o’erthrown: The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword.

Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember’d.

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!

The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!

To put an antic disposition on.

While memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember thee! Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records.

While memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember thee! Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records.

Within the book and volume of my brain.

Within the book and volume of my brain.

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d, No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head.

In the porches of mine ears.

And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf.

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand an end, Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.

My fate cries out, And makes each petty artery in this body As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.

What may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon, Making night hideous; 32 and we fools of nature So horridly to shake our disposition With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou com’st in such a questionable shape That I will speak to thee.

You speak like a green girl, Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.