The former post was removed as it was off topic. We will be migrating to registration-only forums at jollyrogerwest.com Great Books forums and booksliterature.com Great Books forums. These are Great Books sites, and we prefer posts such as:

XXXV



No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,--

Thy adverse party is thy advocate,--

And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:

Such civil war is in my love and hate,

  That I an accessary needs must be,

  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

 	--William Shakespeare

LIX



If there be nothing new, but that which is

Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,

Which labouring for invention bear amiss

The second burthen of a former child!

O! that record could with a backward look,

Even of five hundred courses of the sun,

Show me your image in some antique book,

Since mind at first in character was done!

That I might see what the old world could say

To this composed wonder of your frame;

Wh'r we are mended, or wh'r better they,

Or whether revolution be the same. 

  O! sure I am the wits of former days,

  To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXVII



Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,

Wherein I should your great deserts repay,

Forgot upon your dearest love to call, 

Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

That I have frequent been with unknown minds,

And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right;

That I have hoisted sail to all the winds

Which should transport me farthest from your sight.

Book both my wilfulness and errors down,

And on just proof surmise, accumulate;

Bring me within the level of your frown,

But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate;

  Since my appeal says I did strive to prove

  The constancy and virtue of your love.

 	--William Shakespeare