And twixt the pearls and rubies softly brake A silver sound, that heavenly music seemed to make.

Upon her eyelids many graces sate,
Under the shadow of her even brows,
Working belgardes and amorous retrate;
And every one her with a grace endows,
And every one with meekness to her bows:
So glorious mirror of celestial grace,
And sovereign moniment of mortal vows,
How shall frail pen describe her heavenly
face,
[to disgrace!

For fear, through want of skill, her beauty

So fair, and thousand thousand times more
fair,
[sight;
She seemed, when she presented was to
And was yclad for heat of scorching air,
All in a silken Camus, lily white,
Purfled upon with many a folded plight,
Which all above besprinkled was through-

out

With golden aygulets that glistered bright, Like twinkling stars; and all the skirt about Was hemmed with golden fringe.

Below her ham her weed did somewhat
train,
[embayled
And her straight legs most bravely were
In gilden buskins of costly cordwayne,
All barred with golden bends, which were
entayled
[mayled.

With curious antiques, and full fair au-
Before they fastened were under her knee
In a rich jewel, and therein entrayled
The ends of all the knots, that none might
[enwrapped be:
How they within their foldings close

see

[different be,

let see That from all other birds his tunes should For with their vocal sounds they sing to pleasant May: [play; Upon this dulcet pipe the merle doth only When, in the lower brake, the nightingale hard by [doth ply, In such lamenting strains the joyful hours As though the other birds she to her tunes would draw ; [ing law) And, but that Nature (by her all-constrainEach bird to her own kind this season doth invite, [the night, They else, alone to hear that charmer of

(The more to use their ears) their voices sure would spare

That moduleth her tunes so admirably rare, As man to set in parts at first had learned of her.

To Philomel, the next the linnet we prefer, And by that warbling bird, the wood-lark, place we then [and the wren. The reed-sparrow, the nope, the redbreast, The yellow-pate, which, though she hurt the blooming tree, [she. Yet scarce hath any bird a finer pipe than And of these chaunting fowls, the goldfinch not behind, [her kind. That hath so many sorts descending from The tydy from her notes as delicate as they, The laughing hecco, then the counterfeiting jay; [the leaves, The softer with the shrill (some hid among Some in the taller trees, some in the lower greaves) [tain sun Thus sing away the morn, until the mounThrough thick exhaled fogs his golden head hath run, [covert creeps, And through the twisted tops of our close To kiss the gentle shade, the while that sweetly sleeps.

-:0:

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

1564-1616. CLEOPATRA.

THE barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,

[gold; Burned on the water: the poop was beaten Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were love-sick with them; the [made

oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggared all description: she did lie In her pavilion (cloth-of-gold of tissue), O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see The fancy outwork nature. On each side

her