Page 2304 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn and sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger till he render right,
To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,

And smear with dust their glitt’ring golden tow’rs; [945]

«To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,
To blot old books and alter their contents,

To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings,
To dry the old oak’s sap and cherish springs, [950]
To spoil antiquities of hammer’d steel,
And turn the giddy round of fortune’s wheel;

«To show the beldam daughters of her daughter,

To make the child a man, the man a child,
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter, [955]
To tame the unicorn and lion wild,
To mock the subtle in themselves beguil’d,
To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,

And waste huge stones with little water-drops.

«Why work’st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage, [960]
Unless thou could’st return to make amends?
One poor retiring minute in an age

Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends,
Lending him wit that to bad debtors lends:
O this dread night, would’st thou one hour come back, [965]
I could prevent this storm and shun thy wrack!

«Thou ceaseless lackey to eternity,

With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight;
Devise extremes beyond extremity,
To make him curse this cursed crimeful night. [970]
Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright,

And the dire thought of his committed evil
Shape every bush a hideous shapeless devil.