Page 2436 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn
Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn. [110]
Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
Youth so apt to pluck a sweet!
Do not call it sin in me,
That I am forsworn for thee;
Thou for whom Jove would swear [115]
Juno but an Ethiop were,
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.
This will I send, and something else more plain,
That shall express my true love’s fasting pain. [120]
O, would the King, Berowne, and Longaville
Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note,
For none offend where all alike do dote.

LONGAVILLE

(advancing)
Dumaine, thy love is far from charity, [125]
That in love’s grief desirest society.
You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
To be o’erheard and taken napping so.

KING

(advancing)
Come, sir, you blush! As his your case is such;
You chide at him, offending twice as much. [130]
You do not love Maria! Longaville
Did never sonnet for her sake compile,
Nor never lay his wreathèd arms athwart
His loving bosom to keep down his heart.
I have been closely shrouded in this bush [135]
And marked you both, and for you both did blush.
I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion,
Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.
‘Ay me!’ says one; ‘O Jove!’ the other cries.
One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other’s eyes. [140]

(To Longaville)
You would for paradise break faith and troth;