HUMAN LIFE.

Reason thus with life,

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skiey influences,)

That do this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict: merely, thou art Death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,

Yet run'st toward him still: thou art by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm; thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou'rt not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust: happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get;
And what thou hast, forget'st; thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon: if thou art rich, thou art poor;
For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee: friend hast thou none;
For thy own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,

Forending thee no sooner: thou hast nor youth, nor age;
But, as it were, an after-dinner sleep,

Dreaming on both! for all thy blessed youth

Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

Of palsied eld; and when thou'rt old, and rich. Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,

To make thy riches pleasant.
That bears the name of life?
Lie hid more thousand deaths:
That makes these odds all even.

All the world's a stage,

What's yet in this
Yet in this life
yet death we fear,

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,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
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 honour, 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,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon ;
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
Tnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
Ahat ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

51

MERCY.

'The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes :
"Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice.

MOONLIGHT.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica: look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:

There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims:

Such harmony is in immortal souls ;

But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.