"Take, oh, take those lips away
That so sweetly were forsworn;"
and presents us with a number of disjointed passages which are found in "Love's Labour's Lost."
But the Sonnets are the most interesting, because they give us glimpses into his own life and personal feelings. Many of them are plainly written in the characters of others; some express the sentiments of women towards their lovers, but others are unmistakably the deepest sentiments and feelings of his own life. From these we learn that Shakespeare was not exempt from the dissipations and aberrations incident on a town life at that time, but his true and noble nature led him to abandon the immoral city as early as possible, and retire to his own domestic roof in his own native place. We may select one specimen of these sonnets, which probably was addressed to his wife, and which at once betrays his dislike of his profession of an actor, and his regret over the influence which it had had on his mind, and the stigma which it had cast on his name; for the profession of a player was then so low as to stamp actors as "vagabonds."
"Oh, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than public means which public manners breeds:
Thence came it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued