There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook.
William ShakespeareAnd why not death rather than living torment? To die is to be banish'd from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
William ShakespeareHaply for I am black, And have not those soft parts of conversation That chamberers have; or for I am declined Into the vale of yearsโyet thatโs not muchโ Sheโs gone. I am abused, and my relief Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage, That we can call these delicate creatures ours And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad And live upon the vapor of a dungeon Than keep a corner in the thing I love For othersโ uses. Yet โtis the plague of great ones; Prerogatived are they less than the base. โTis destiny unshunnable, like death.
William Shakespeare