My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear: That love is merchandised whose rich esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles; his love sincere, his thoughts immaculate; his tears pure messengers sent from his heart; his heart as far from fraud, as heaven from earth
Two households, both alike in dignity In fair Verona, where we lay our scene From ancient grudge break to new mutiny Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The summer's flow'r is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die'
But if that flow'r with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.