Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah! what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy

To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery?
O, yes! it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince's delicates,
His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
His body couched in a curious bed,

When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.

Henry VI, Part III, II. v.

SLEEP

(1) Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown

K. Henry IV. How many thousand of my poorest subjects

Are at this hour asleep! O sleep! O gentle sleep!
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common 'larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamour in the slippery clouds,
That with the hurly death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Henry IV, Part II, III. i.

(2) Innocent Sleep

Macbeth. Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!

Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast.

Macbeth, II. ii.

FLOWERS

Perdita

Perdita. Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.
Reverend sirs,

For

you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long :
Grace and remembrance be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing!

Polixenes.

Shepherdess, A fair one are you,-well you fit our ages With flowers of winter.

Perdita.

Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations, and streak'd gillyvors,

Which some call nature's bastards of that kind Our rustic garden 's barren, and I care not

There is an art which in their piedness shares

With great creating nature.

Polixenes.

Say there be ;

Yet nature is made better by no mean

But nature makes that mean: so, over that art, Which you say adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we

marry

A gentler scion to the wildest stock,

And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race: this is an art

Which does mend nature, change it rather, but The art itself is nature.

Polixenes. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,

And do not call them bastards.

Perdita.

I'll not put

The dibble in earth to set one slip of them;
No more than, were I painted, I would wish
This youth should say, 'twere well, and only there-

fore

you;

Desire to breed by me. Here's flowers for
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. You're very welcome.
Camillo. I should leave grazing, were I of your
flock,

And only live by gazing.

Perdita.

Out, alas!

You'd be so lean, that blasts of January

Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend,

I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might
Become your time of day; and yours, and yours,
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina !
For the flowers now that frighted thou let'st fall
From Dis's waggon! daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes

Or Cytherea's breath; pale prime-roses,

That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one.. O! these I lack
To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,
To strew him o'er and o'er !

Winter's Tale, IV. iii.

THE FOREST OF ARDEN

Enter DUKE Senior, AMIENS, and other Lords, like Foresters.

Duke S. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, The seasons' difference; as, the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say

This is no flattery: these are counsellors

That feelingly persuade me what I am.'

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head ;
And this our life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

As You Like It, II. i.