Page 2249 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

And as they last, their verdour still endure,
To drive infection from the dangerous year:
That the star-gazers, having writ on death,
May say, the plague is banish’d by thy breath. [510]

«Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,

What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?
To sell myself I can be well contented,
So thou wilt buy, and pay, and use good dealing:

Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips, [515]
Set thy seal manual on my wax-red lips.

«A thousand kisses buys my heart from me,
And pay them at thy leisure, one by one,
What is ten hundred touches unto thee?

Are they not quickly told and quickly gone? [520]
Say for non-payment that the debt should double,
Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?»

«Fair queen», quoth he, «if any love you owe me,
Measure my strangeness with my unripe years.

Before I know myself, seek not to know me: [525]
No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears;
The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,
Or being early pluck’d, is sour to taste.

«Look the world’s comforter with weary gait

His day’s hot task hath ended in the west; [530]
The owl, night’s herald, shrieks, ’tis very late;
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,
And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven’s light

Do summon us to part, and bid good night.

«Now let me say good night, and so say you; [535]
If you will say so, you shall have a kiss».
«Good night», quoth she, and ere he says adieu,
The honey fee of parting tender’d is: