To lead my love to bed, and to arise;
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes;
Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
How many short and pithy thoughts dazzle in the gorgeous pages of this bard. In the following, he shows the mystic sympathy of the senses:—
To hear with eyes, belongs to love's fine wit,
A lover's eye will gaze an eagle blind;
Beauty of itself doth of itself persuade,
The eyes of men without an actor;
True eyes have never practised how
To cloak offences with a cunning brow.
Again, he speaks of the brilliancy and lovely translucency of woman's eye (all good men agree with Shakespeare's praise of woman):—
O how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow,
Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;
Both crystals, when they viewed each other's sorrow,
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;
But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,
Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.
Perhaps one of the most charming thoughts may lie in the following. We say may lie, for we are constantly discovering new, brighter, and more heavenly meaning in Shakespeare; and, believe, various minds receive very various delights in reading the scriptures of this spirit from his poems. The quotation is, where he is showing sorrow turned into joy:—
The night of sorrow now is turned to day;
Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,
Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array
He cheers the morn, and all the world relieveth;
And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,
So is her face illumined by her eye.
Again (here is one of our own figures) the poet describes
