This night I hold an old accustomed feast, Whereto I have invited many a guest, Such as I love; and you among the store, One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
I am thy father's spirit;
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night
And, for the day, confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purg'd away.
Pray, do not mock me.
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
And in some perfumes there is more delight than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound.
The sense of death is most in apprehension, And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies.
I had rather be a Kitten, and cry mew, Than one of these same Meeter Ballad-mongers: I had rather heare a Brazen Candlestick turn'd, Or a dry Wheele grate on the Axle-tree, And that would set my teeth nothing an edge, Nothing so much, as mincing Poetrie.