Time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arm outstretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer.
He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs His outsides, to wear them like his raiment, carelessly, And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart, To bring it into danger.
O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last, And careful hours with Time's deformed hand Have written strange defeatures in my face. But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?
Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen!
Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!
I was too young that time to value her, But now I know her. If she be a traitor, Why, so am I. We still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learned, played, eat together, And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans, Still we went coupled and inseparable.
If there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up; So quick bright things come to confusion.
Man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he's most assur d, glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, as make the angels weep.
O, Men's vows are women's traitors! All good seeming, By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought Put on for villainy, not born where't grows, But worn a bait for ladies.