Life!  I know not what thou art. 
    But know that thou and I must part;
    And when, or how, or where we met,
    I own to me’s a secret yet. 
    Life! we’ve been long together
    Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
    Tis hard to part when friends are dear—­
    Perhaps ’twill cost a sigh, a tear;
    —­Then steal away, give little warning,
    Choose thine own time;
    Say not Good Night,—­but in some brighter clime
    Bid me Good Morning.

A.L.  BARBAULD.

 MERCY.

“Mercy,” an excerpt from “The Merchant of Venice,” “Polonius’ Advice,” from “Hamlet,” and “Antony’s Speech,” from “Julius Caesar” (all fragments from Shakespeare, 1564-1616), find a place in this book because a well-known New York teacher—­one who is unremitting in his efforts to raise the good taste and character of his pupils—­says:  “A book of poetry could not be complete without these extracts.”

    The quality of mercy is not strain’d;
    It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven
    Upon the place beneath:  it is twice bless’d;
    It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes: 
   ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
    The throned monarch better than his crown: 
    His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
    The attribute to awe and majesty,
    Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
    But mercy is above his sceptered sway;
    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
    It is an attribute to God himself;
    And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
    When mercy seasons justice.

SHAKESPEARE ("Merchant of Venice").

 POLONIUS’ ADVICE.

    See thou character.  Give thy thoughts no tongue,
    Nor any unproportion’d thought his act. 
    Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar: 
    The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
    Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
    But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
    Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade.  Beware
    Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,
    Bear ‘t that th’ opposed may beware of thee. 
    Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: 
    Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. 
    Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy
    But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy: 
    For the apparel oft proclaims the man. 
    Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
    For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
    And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 
    This above all:  to thine own self be true;
    And it must follow, as the night the day,
    Thou canst not then be false to any man.

SHAKESPEARE ("Hamlet").

 A FRAGMENT FROM MARK ANTONY’S SPEECH.