PART I

THE POET'S WORLD

They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a sol-
dier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the
pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden, and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation,

Man a Player

Time's Guest

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the
justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin❜d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age
shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly
voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every-
thing. As You Like It. Act II, Sc. 7.

FOR

OR Time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest
by the hand,

And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would

fly,

Grasps in the comer; welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing.

TH

Troilus and Cressida. Act III, Sc. 3.

HIS is the state of man: to-day he puts
forth

The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blos

soms,

And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full
surely

His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls. Henry VIII. Act III, Sc. 2.

Fo

TIME

OR never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him

there,

Sap check'd with frost and lusty leaves quite

gone,

Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness everywhere.

From
Spring

to Winter

A

Traitorous

Guide

Sonnet V.