Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
What! keep a week away? seven days and nights?
Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,
More tedious than the dial eight score times?
O, weary reckoning!
If heaven would make me such another world
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,
I'ld not have sold her for it.
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme: of one, whose hand
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe: of one, whose subdued
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum.
There is no creature loves me,
And if I die, no soul shall pity me.
From love's weak childish bow she lives unharmed.
Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;
~!eing purg'd, a fire sparkling in a lover's eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
Steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks.
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but—"Ay me!" pronounce but "love" and
"dove."
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
O, Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou, Romeo?
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt.
At lovers' perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee
The more I have, for both are infinite.
Love goes toward love as school-boys from their books,
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.
It is my soul that calls upon my name;
How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
Like soft music to attending ears.
'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:
And yet no further than a wanton's bird;
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
Love's heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,
Driving back shadows over louring hills;
Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. </poem>
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him, and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
And all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
They say all lovers swear more performance
than they are able, and yet reserve an ability
that they never perform.
For to be wise, and love
Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.
The noblest hateful love that e'er I heard of.
Troilus and Cressida. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 33.
| seealso = (See also Lyly)
| topic = Love
| page = 479
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 25
| text = <poem>O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute!
