That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make,

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear

To grunt and sweat under a weary life;

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

Servile to all the skyey influences, That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,

Hourly afflict. 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. SHAKSPEARE: Measure for Measure.

LIFE AND DEATH.

AY, but to die, and go we know not where,

To lie in cold obstruction, and to

rot:

This sensible warm motion to be

come

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts

Imagine howling!-'tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life,

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
SHAKSPEARE: Measure for Measure.

INSCRIPTION ON MELROSE ABBEY.

THE earth goes on the earth glittering in gold,

The earth goes to the earth sooner than it would;

The earth builds on the earth castles and towers,

The earth says to the earth — All this is ours.