XIV. Take Those Lips Away. ....................................................................................
The first stanza of this little sonnet, which an eminent critic[1] justly admires
for its extreme sweetness, is found in Shakspeare'sMeasure for Measure. act iv. sc.1.
Both the stanzas are preserved in Beaum. and Fletcher'sBloody Brother, act v. sc. 2.
Sewel and Gildon have printed it among Shakspeare's smaller poems; but they have
done the same by twenty other pieces that were never writ by him, their book being a
wretched heap of inaccuracies and mistakes. It is not found in Jaggard's old edition of
Shakspeare'sPassionate Pilgrim,[2] &c.
TAKE, oh take those lips away,
That so sweetlye were forsworne
And those eyes, the breake of day,
Lights, that do misleade the morne:
But my kisses bring againe,
Scales of love, but seal'd in vaine.
Hide, oh hide those hills of snowe,
Which thy frozen bosom beares,
On whose tops the pinkes that growe
Are of those that April wears:
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.
NOTES
- Dr. Warburton in hisShakspeare.
- Mr. Malone, in his improved edition of Shakspeare's Sonnets, &c. hath substituted
this instead of Marlow's Madrigal, printed above; for which he hath assigned reasons,
which the reader may see in his vol. x. p. 340.