“Had it pleased heavenTo try me with affliction; had they rain'dAll kinds of sores and shames on my bare head.Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,I should have found in some place of my soulA drop of patience: but, alas, to make meA fixed figure for the time of scornTo point his slow unmoving finger at!Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,Where either I must live, or bear no life;The fountain from the which my current runs,Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!Or keep it as a cistern for foul toadsTo knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,--Ay, there, look grim as hell!”
“Fondling,' she saith, 'since I have hemm'd thee here Within the circuit of this ivory pale, I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer; Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale: Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry, Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.”
“Is it thy will, thy image should keep openMy heavy eyelids to the weary night?Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from theeSo far from home into my deeds to pry,To find out shames and idle hours in me,The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,To play the watchman ever for thy sake:For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,From me far off, with others all too near.”
“Yes, madam: yet I cannot choose but laugh,To think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'And yet, I warrant, it had upon its browA bump as big as a young cockerel's stone;A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly:'Yea,' quoth my husband,'fall'st upon thy face?Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;Wilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.”
“I, measuring his affections by my own,Which then most sought where most might not be found,Being one too many by my weary self,Pursued my humor not pursuing his,And gladly shunned who gladly fled from me.”
“If I profane with my unworthiest handThis holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready standTo smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.Juliet:Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,Which mannerly devotion shows in this;For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.Romeo:Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?Juliet:Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.Romeo:O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.Juliet:Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.Romeo:Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.Juliet:Then have my lips the sin that they have took.Romeo:Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!Give me my sin again.Juliet:You kiss by the book.”
“Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love. That inward beauty and invisible;Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move each part in me that were but sensible: Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see, yet should I be in love by touching thee.'Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me, and that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch, and nothing but the very smell were left me, yet would my love to thee be still as much; for from the stillitory of thy face excelling comes breath perfum'd that breedeth love by smelling.”