O! give me thy hand, One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book.
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
Virtue itself ‘scapes not calumnious strokes.
Men should be what they seem; Or those that be not, would they might seem none!
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.
Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make’s love known?
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
To be, or not to be, that is the question.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
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.
‘Tis too much proved—that with devotion’s visage And pious action we do sugar o’er The devil himself.
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.
