Love’s Memory

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

From “All ’s Well That Ends Well,” Act I. Sc. 1.

I AM undone: there is no living, none,

If Bertram be away. It were all one,

That I should love a bright particular star,

And think to wed it, he is so above me:

In his bright radiance and collateral light

Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.

The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:

The hind that would be mated by the lion

Must die for love. ’T was pretty, though a plague,

To see him every hour; to sit and draw

His archèd brows, his hawking eye, his curls,

In our heart’s table,—heart too capable

Of every line and trick of his sweet favor:

But now he ’s gone, and my idolatrous fancy

Must sanctify his relics.