THE GARDEN-CRAFT OF SHAKESPEARE 
The bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath, 
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. 
Romeo andJuliet, ii. 2, 121. 
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer-buds. 
Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 1, 110. 
I must up-fill this osier cage of ours 
With baleful weeds, and precious-juiced flowers. 
The earth, that’s Nature’s mother, is her tomb; 
What is her burying grave that is her womb, 
And from her womb children of divers kind 
We sucking on her natural bosom find, 
Many for many virtues excellent, 
None but for some and yet all different. 
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies 
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities : 
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live 
But to the earth some special good doth give, 
Nor aught so good but, strain’d from that fair use, 
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse : 
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied ; 
And vice sometime’s by action dignified. 
Within the infant rind of this small flower 
Poison hath residence and medicine power : 
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; 
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. 
Two such opposed kings encamp them still 
In man as well as herbs,—grace and rude will ; 
And where the worser is predominant, 
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant. 
Romeo andJidiet, ii. 3, 7. 
Though other things grow fair against the sun, 
Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe. 
Othello , ii. 3, 382. 
Love, whose month is ever May, 
Spied a blossom, passing fair 
Playing in the wanton air ; 
Through the velvet leaves the wind, 
All unseen, can passage find. 
Love's Labour's Lost , iv. 3, 102. 
Fair flowers that are not gathered in their prime 
Rot and consume themselves in little time. 
Venus and Adonis, 131. 
