Page:As You Like It (1919) Yale.djvu/83

As You Like It, III. v

And yet it is not that I bear thee love:

But since that thou canst talk of love so well,

Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,

I will endure, and I'll employ thee too;

But do not look for further recompense

Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd.

Sil. So holy and so perfect is my love,

And I in such a poverty of grace,

That I shall think it a most plenteous crop

To glean the broken ears after the man

That the main harvest reaps: loose now and then

A scatter'd smile, and that I'll live upon.

Phe. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?

Sil. Not very well, but I have met him oft;

And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds

That the old carlot once was master of.

Phe. Think not I love him, though I ask for him.

'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well;

But what care I for words? yet words do well,

When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.

It is a pretty youth: not very pretty:

But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him:

He'll make a proper man: the best thing in him

Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue

Did make offence his eye did heal it up.

He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall:

His leg is but so so; and yet 'tis well:

There was a pretty redness in his lip,

A little riper and more lusty red

Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference

 93 yet not: i.e., the time is not yet

100 grace: good esteem, favor

108 carlot: peasant

110 peevish: captious

121 lusty: vigorous 