William Shakespeare

(from Hamlet, spoken by Hamlet)
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head

AR no more the heat o' the sun,    Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,    Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust

In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd
It droppeth as the gentle rain from
Upon the place beneath
It is twice blest:

Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,— The wild waves whist,— Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear

When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times' waste;
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of

Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather
Who doth ambition shun, And loves to live ...

The Procreation Sonnets are grouped together because they all address the same young man, and all encourage him — with a variety of themes and arguements — to marry and father children (hence 'procreation')
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'Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo    Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua
'    TO
HE
HT

They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:

When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When Blood is nipped and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,

OM off a hill whose concave womb reworded A plaintful story from a sistering vale, My spirits to attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale; Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale, Tearing of papers, breaking ri...

When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,