Nature and Elements

No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace, As I have seen in one autumnal face.

Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love.

Ah cannot we As well as cocks and lions jocund be, After such pleasures?

’Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s.

’Tis true, ’tis day; what though it be? O wilt thou therefore rise from me? Why should we rise, because ’tis light? Did we lie down, because ’twas night? Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither Should in despite of light keep us together.

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?

Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain-tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing.

Where the bee sucks, there suck I In a cowslip’s bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat’s back I do fly After summer merrily: Merrily, merrily shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made: Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. 57

Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Curtsied when you have, and kiss’d— The wild waves whist,— Foot it featly here and there.

The very rats Instinctively have quit it.

When you do dance, I wish you A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that.

Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty.

Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty.

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun, And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age.

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun, And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age.

For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming and savor all the winter long.

For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming and savor all the winter long.

Then comes in the sweet o’ the year.

A sad tale’s best for winter. I have one of sprites and goblins.

From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.

How like a winter hath my absence been.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.