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8
A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT’S DREAM
act i.
Hermia.
O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low.
Lysander.
Or else misgraffed in respect of years,—
Hermia.
O spite! too old to be engaged to young.
Lysander.
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,—
Hermia.
O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes.
Lysander.
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
Hermia.
If then true lovers have been ever cross’d,
It stands as an edict in destiny: