[From Taming of the Shrew.]

THINK you, a little din can daunt my ears?

Have I not in my time heard lions roar?

Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds,

Rage like an angry boar, chafed with sweat?

Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,

And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?

Have I not in a pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?

And do you tell me of a woman's tongue;

That gives not half so great a blow to

the ear,

As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire.

And gives to every power a double power,

Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye:
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is
stopp'd;

Love's feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockled snails;

Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste;

For valor, is not love a Hercules,

Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as sphinx; as sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;

And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods

Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony, Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs:

O, then his lines would ravage savage

ears,

And plant in tyrants mild humility.

WINTER.

[From Love's Labour's Lost.] WHEN icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home i' the pail;

When blood is nipt, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl,

Tu-whoo!

Tu-whit; tu-whoo! a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drown the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marion's nose looks red and raw; When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whoo!

Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.