Continuing the Best of Poetry series, this anthology brings together 150 of the finest passages from Shakespeare’s plays and poetic works. We hope our selection will allow readers to rediscover the brilliance of Shakespeare’s poetic inventiveness, and the depth and subtlety of his insight as he creates and explores the minds of the most fully-realised and autonomous characters in all of fiction.
The beauty in these fragments is best unlocked by reading them aloud, savouring the rhythms, the rich ambiguity of metaphor, and vivid evocation of scene. Learn them by heart if you can, and when inspired, revisit the complete plays and admire the passages anew in their native soil.
As with other volumes in the Best of Poetry series, the works included here are organised thematically, and arranged in such a way that they may interpret and illumine one another. There are eleven themes: The Forms of Things Unknown; Reason and Rapture; The Purple Testament; Love; Immortal Time and Mortal Man; Ambition and Jealousy; Wrath and Vengeance; Mark the Music; The Tragic Soul; Grief and Death; and Sonnets.
The passages are introduced by a small collection of quotations from some of the most perceptive interpreters of Shakespeare’s work. There then follows the main contents page, and an accompanying alphabetical index of plays to help you locate specific passages.
At Elsinore Books we pride ourselves on creating beautiful e-books, and devote great attention to formatting, and ease of navigation. This book contains a cleanly-styled contents page that permits easy movement between the poems. We regularly update the formatting of our books, to ensure they will always remain perfectly accessible on all e-reader models.
This book is part of the Best of Poetry series, which also includes:
The Best of Poetry: Thoughts that Breathe and Words that Burn
The Best of Poetry: A Young Person’s Book of Evergreen Verse
The Best of Poetry — Shakespeare Muse of Fire: In 150 Passages
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If you have any questions, you can contact us at admin@elsinorebooks.co.uk and we'll be with you right away to help.Part 1: The Forms of Things Unknown
Be Not Afeard; the Isle Is Full of Noises
Over Hill, Over Dale
My Gentle Puck, Come Hither
I Know a Bank Wheron the Wild Thyme Blows
Lovers and Madmen Have Such Seething Brains
I Dreamt a Dream Tonight
Ye Elves of Hills
Now the Hungry Lion Roars
The Gaudy, Blabbing, and Remorseful Day
For Night’s Swift Dragons Cut the Clouds Full Fast
Come, Seeling Night
It Was About to Speak When the Cock Crew
Where Wilt Thou Lead Me?
A Lioness Hath Whelpèd in the Streets
When Shall We Three Meet Again?
Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mewed
Our Revels Now Are Ended
Part 2: Reason and Rapture
All the World’s a Stage
The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strained
Our Remedies Oft in Ourselves Do Lie
O God! Methinks It Were a Happy Life
How Many Thousand of My Poorest Subjects
How Blest Am I in My Just Censure
Now, My Co-Mates and Brothers in Exile
So Work the Honey-Bees
Let Us Our Lives, Our Souls, Our Debts
The Heavens Themselves
This Royal Throne of Kings
Are Not You Moved, When All the Sway of Earth
The Barge She Sat in, Like a Burnished Throne
Part 3: The Purple Testament
Yet Know, My Master, God Omnipotent
A Horse! A Horse! My Kingdom for a Horse!
O, War, Thou Son of Hell
O for a Muse of Fire
Thus with Imagined Wing Our Swift Scene Flies
Once More unto the Breach
How Yet Resolves the Governor of the Town?
Now Entertain Conjecture of a Time
If We Are Marked to Die
Part 4: Love
Love Is a Smoke Raised with the Fume of Sighs
And Why Not Death, Rather Than Living Torment?
O, She Doth Teach the Torches to Burn Bright!
Here the Anthem Doth Commence
But Love, First Learned in a Lady’s Eyes
If I Profane with My Unworthiest Hand
If I Did Love You in My Master’s Flame
But, Soft! What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks?
The Moon Shines Bright
My Father Had a Daughter Loved a Man
Gallop Apace, You Fiery-Footed Steeds
Wilt Thou Be Gone? It Is Not Yet Near Day
Is Brutus Sick?
Her Father Loved Me
What Thou Seest When Thou Dost Wake
Out of This Wood Do Not Desire to Go
Honour, Riches, Marriage-Blessing
Since My Dear Soul Was Mistress of Her Choice
Part 5: Immortal Time and Mortal Man
Time’s Glory Is to Calm Contending Kings
I Wasted Time, And Now Doth Time Waste Me
Time Hath, My Lord, a Wallet at His Back
Yon King’s to Me Like to My Father’s Picture
Let Fame, That All Hunt After in Their Lives
Injurious Time Now with a Robber’s Haste
But Man, Proud Man
Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun
No Matter Where; of Comfort No Man Speak
So Farewell to the Little Good You Bear Me
Ay, But to Die, and Go We Know Not Where
O That This Too Too Solid Flesh Would Melt
To Be, Or Not to Be; That Is the Question
Alas, Poor Yorick!
Part 6: Ambition and Jealousy
And Yet I Know Not How to Get the Crown
Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent
Was Ever Woman in This Humour Wooed?
Wherein Is He Good, But to Taste Sack and Drink It?
He Doth Bestride the Narrow World
Let Me Have Men About Me That Are Fat
I Follow Him to Serve My Turn upon Him
Though I Perchance Am Vicious in My Guess
The Raven Himself Is Hoarse
If It Were Done
Thou, Nature, Art My Goddess
Is Whispering Nothing?
Part 7: Wrath and Vengeance
Ay, That I Had Not Done a Thousand More
You Common Cry of Curs!
Meantime We Shall Express Our Darker Purpose
You See Me Here, You Gods, a Poor Old Man
O Goneril, You Are Not Worth the Dust
Now I Am Alone
How All Occasions Do Inform Against Me
Signor Antonio, Many a Time and Oft
Why, I Am Sure If He Forfeit Thou Wilt Not Take His Flesh
Over Thy Wounds Now Do I Prophesy
Rascal Thieves, Here’s Gold
Part 8: Mark the Music
If Music Be the Food of Love
How Sweet the Moonlight Sleeps upon This Bank!
Orpheus with His Lute Made Trees
When Icicles Hang by the Wall
Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind
When Daffodils Begin to Peer
Lawn as White as Driven Snow
Under the Greenwood Tree
Come, Thou Monarch of the Vine
Full Fathom Five Thy Father Lies
Where the Bee Sucks, There Suck I
Hark, Hark, the Lark at Heaven’s Gate Sings
The Crow Doth Sing as Sweetly as the Lark
You Spotted Snakes, with Double Tongue
The Poor Soul Sat Sighing by a Sycamore Tree
Sigh No More, Ladies, Sigh No More
He Is Dead and Gone, Lady
O Mistress Mine, Where Are You Roaming?
Part 9: The Tragic Soul
Is This a Dagger Which I See Before Me
Methought I Heard a Voice Cry “Sleep No More”
Out, Damned Spot!
Canst Thou Not Minister to a Mind Diseased
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Not Poppy nor Mandragora
It Is the Cause, It Is the Cause, My Soul
I Have Been Studying How I May Compare
O Coward Conscience
Hear, Nature, Hear; Dear Goddess, Hear
Blow, Winds, and Crack Your Cheeks!
Things That Love Night
When We Our Betters See Bearing Our Woes
I Have of Late—But Wherefore I Know Not
’Tis Now the Very Witching Time of Night
Sweets to The Sweet. Farewell
Part 10: Grief and Death
Grief Fills the Room up of My Absent Child
A Glooming Peace This Morning with It Brings
Howl, Howl, Howl, Howl!—O, You Are Men of Stones
And My Poor Fool Is Hanged
O, I die, Horatio!
Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers, Hear Me for My Cause
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears
If You Have Tears, Prepare to Shed Them Now
This Was the Noblest Roman of Them All
His Legs Bestrid the Ocean
Beauty, Truth, and Rarity
Part 11: Sonnets
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?
Weary with Toil I Haste Me to My Bed
How Can I Then Return In Happy Plight
When, in Disgrace with Fortune and Men’s Eyes
When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought
Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen
How Heavy Do I Journey on the Way
Not Marble nor the Gilded Monuments
Like as the Waves Make Towards the Pebbled Shore
When I Have Seen by Time’s Fell Hand Defaced
Since Brass, nor Stone, nor Earth, nor Boundless Sea
That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold
How Like a Winter Hath My Absence Been
To Me, Fair Friend, You Never Can Be Old
When in the Chronicle of Wasted Time
Not Mine Own Fears nor the Prophetic Soul
Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun
Epilogue
If We Shadows Have Offended
Now My Charms Are All O’erthrown