Page:Love's Labour's Lost (1925) Yale.djvu/66

54

Dum. As upright as the cedar.

Ber. Stoop, I say;

Her shoulder is with child.

Dum. As fair as day.

Ber. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.

Dum. O that I had my wish!

Long. And I had mine!

King. And [I] mine too, good Lord!

Ber. Amen, so I had mine. Is not that a good word?

Dum. I would forget her; but a fever she

Reigns in my blood, and will remember'd be.

Ber. A fever in your blood! why, then incision

Would let her out in saucers: sweet misprision!

Dum. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.

Ber. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.

Dumaine reads his Sonnet.

Dum. 'On a day, alack the day!

Love, whose month is ever May,

Spied a blossom passing fair

Playing in the wanton air:

Through the velvet leaves the wind,

All unseen, can passage find;

That the lover, sick to death,

Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.

Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;

Air, would I might triumph so!

But alack! my hand is sworn

Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:

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;

 89 Stoop; cf. n.

97 incision: blood-letting

98 saucers: receptacles for the blood

misprision; mistake

