Page:A Midsummer-Nights Dream (Rackham).djvu/28

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O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low.

Or else misgraffed in respect of years,—

O spite! too old to be engaged to young.

Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,—

O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes.

Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,

War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,

Making it momentary as a sound,

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;

Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,

And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’

The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick bright things come to confusion.

If then true lovers have been ever cross’d,

It stands as an edict in destiny:

Then let us teach our trial patience,