A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.”

“Though she be but little, she is fierce!”

“The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood,O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low. Or else misgraffed in respect of years, O spite! too old to be engag’d to young. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,O hell! to choose love by another’s eye.”

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,Such shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.The lunatic, the lover and the poetAre of imagination all compact:One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet's penTurns them to shapes and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.”

“And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”

“My soul is in the sky.”

“If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended,That you have but slumbered hereWhile these visions did appear.And this weak and idle theme,No more yielding but a dream,Gentles, do not reprehend:If you pardon, we will mend:And, as I am an honest Puck,If we have unearned luckNow to 'scape the serpent's tongue,We will make amends ere long;Else the Puck a liar call;So, good night unto you all.Give me your hands, if we be friends,And Robin shall restore amends.”

“Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream”

“The lunatic, the lover, and the poetAre of imagination all compact:One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet's penTurns them to shapes and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.”

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.”

“I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,To die upon the hand I love so well.”

“O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd! She was a vixen when she went to school; And though she be but little, she is fierce.”

“Love's stories written in love's richest books.To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.”

“So we grew together,Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,But yet an union in partition,Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.”

“Thus I die. Thus, thus, thus.Now I am dead,Now I am fled,My soul is in the sky.Tongue, lose thy light.Moon take thy flight.Now die, die, die, die.”

“And sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.”

“For you, in my respect, are all the world.Then how can it be said I am aloneWhen all the world is here to look on me?”

“Take pains. Be perfect.”

“Things base and vile, holding no quantity,Love can transpose to form and dignity.Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.”

“Oh why rebuke you him that loves you so? / Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.”

“Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania”

“O me, you juggler, you canker-blossom, you thief of love!”

“Up and down, up and downI will lead them up and downI am feared in field in townGoblin, lead them up and down”

“Ay me! for aught that ever I could read,could ever hear by tale or history,the course of true love never did run smooth.”

“It is not night when I do see your face,Therefore I think I am not in the night;Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,For you in my respect are all the world:Then how can it be said I am alone,When all the world is here to look on me?”

“Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion”

“Through the forest have I gone.But Athenian found I none,On whose eyes I might approveThis flower's force in stirring love.Night and silence.--Who is here?Weeds of Athens he doth wear:This is he, my master said,Despised the Athenian maid;And here the maiden, sleeping sound,On the dank and dirty ground.Pretty soul! she durst not lieNear this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.Churl, upon thy eyes I throwAll the power this charm doth owe.When thou wakest, let love forbidSleep his seat on thy eyelid:So awake when I am gone;For I must now to Oberon.”

“One sees more devils than vast hell can hold”

“The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wondersAt out quaint spirits.”