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Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,

In either's aptness, as it best deceives,

To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,

Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows;

'That not a heart which in his level came

Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,

Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;

And, veiled in them, did win whom he would maim.

Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;

When he most burned in heart-wished luxury,

He preached pure maid and praised cold chastity.

'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace

The naked and concealed fiend he covered,

That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,

Which, like a cherubin, above them hovered.

Who, young and simple, would not be so lovered?

Ay me, I fell, and yet do question make

What I should do again for such a sake.

'O, that infected moisture of his eye,

O, that false fire which in his cheek so glowed,

O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,

O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed,

O, all that borrowed motion, seeming owed,

Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed,

And new pervert a reconciled maid.'

The Apocryphal Poetry

TO THE QUEEN

This short 18 line poem is of doubtful origin and was written on the back of an envelope, and thought to have been written as an epilogue for a performance of As You Like It, given at court on Shrove Tuesday in February 1599. American scholars William Ringler and Steven May discovered the poem in 1972 in the notebook of a man called Henry Stanford, who is known to have worked in the household of the Lord Chamberlain.

As the dial hand tells o'er

The same hours it had before,

Still beginning in the ending,

Circular account still lending,

So, most mighty Queen we pray,

Like the dial day by day

You may lead the seasons on,

Making new when old are gone,

That the babe which now is young

And hath yet no use of tongue

Many a Shrovetide here may bow

To that empress I do now,

That the children of these lords,

Sitting at your council boards,

May be grave and aged seen

Of her that was their fathers' queen.

Once I wish this wish again,

Heaven subscribe it with "Amen".

A FUNERAL ELEGY FOR MASTER WILLIAM PETER

In 1989 scholar and forensic linguist Donald Foster used stylometric computer analysis to attribute this poem to Shakespeare, based on an analysis of its grammatical patterns and idiosyncratic word usage. However, later analysis by scholars Gilles Monsarrat and Brian Vickers showed Foster's attribution to be premature, and that the true author may well have been the playwright John Ford.

TO MASTER JOHN PETER

of Bowhay in Devon, Esquire.

The love I bore to your brother, and will do to his memory, hath crav'd

from me this last duty of a friend; I am herein but a second to the

privilege of Truth, who can warrant more in his behalf than I undertook to

deliver. Exercise in this kind I will little affect, and am less addicted

to, but there must be miracle in that labor which, to witness my

remembrance to this departed gentleman, I would not willingly undergo.

Yet whatsoever is here done, is done to him, and to him only. For whom and

whose sake I will not forget to remember any friendly respects to you, or

to any of those that have lov'd him for himself, and himself for his

deserts.

W. S.

A FUNERAL ELEGY

Since Time, and his predestinated end,

Abridg'd the circuit of his hopeful days,

Whiles both his Youth and Virtue did intend

The good endeavors of deserving praise,

5 What memorable monument can last

Whereon to build his never-blemish'd name

But his own worth, wherein his life was grac'd-

Sith as [that] ever he maintain'd the same?

Oblivion in the darkest day to come,

10 When sin shall tread on merit in the dust,

Cannot rase out the lamentable tomb

Of his short-liv'd deserts; but still they must,

Even in the hearts and memories of men,

Claim fit Respect, that they, in every limb

15 Rememb'ring what he was, with comfort then

May pattern out one truly good, by him.

For he was truly good,