And be these juggling fiends no more believed, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope.
Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make’s love known?
O! give me thy hand, One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book.
Men should be what they seem; Or those that be not, would they might seem none!
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
Virtue itself ‘scapes not calumnious strokes.
To be, or not to be, that is the question.
For what is wedlock forced but a hell, An age of discord and continual strife? Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss, And is a pattern of celestial peace.
‘Tis too much proved—that with devotion’s visage And pious action we do sugar o’er The devil himself.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks: arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.
