Page:Romeo and Juliet (1917) Yale.djvu/52

40

The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,

I must up-fill this osier cage of ours

With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.

The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;

What is her burying grave that is her womb,

And from her womb children of divers kind

We sucking on her natural bosom find,

Many for many virtues excellent,

None but for some, and yet all different.

O! mickle is the powerful grace that lies

In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities:

For nought so vile that on the earth doth live

But to the earth some special good doth give,

Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,

And vice sometime's by action dignified.

Within the infant rind of this weak flower

Poison hath residence and medicine power:

For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;

Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.

Two such opposed kings encamp them still

In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;

And where the worser is predominant,

Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

Rom. Good morrow, father!

''Fri. L''. Benedicite!

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?

Young son, it argues a distemper'd head

 7 osier cage: willow basket

15 mickle: great

grace: efficacy

28 grace: the grace of God

30 canker: parasitic worm

31 Benedicite: God bless you

33 distemper'd: mentally or morally deranged

