TOUCHSTONE

You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the
forest judge.

Enter CELIA, with a writing

ROSALIND

Peace! Here comes my sister, reading: stand aside.

CELIA

[Reads]
Why should this a desert be?
For it is unpeopled? No:
Tongues I'll hang on every tree,
That shall civil sayings show:
Some, how brief the life of man
Runs his erring pilgrimage,
That the stretching of a span
Buckles in his sum of age;
Some, of violated vows
'Twixt the souls of friend and friend:
But upon the fairest boughs,
Or at every sentence end,
Will I Rosalinda write,
Teaching all that read to know
The quintessence of every sprite
Heaven would in little show.
Therefore Heaven Nature charged
That one body should be fill'd
With all graces wide-enlarged:
Nature presently distill'd
Helen's cheek, but not her heart,
Cleopatra's majesty,
Atalanta's better part,
Sad Lucretia's modesty.
Thus Rosalind of many parts
By heavenly synod was devised,
Of many faces, eyes and hearts,
To have the touches dearest prized.
Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
And I to live and die her slave.

ROSALIND

O most gentle pulpiter! what tedious homily of love
have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never
cried 'Have patience, good people!'

CELIA

How now! back, friends! Shepherd, go off a little.
Go with him, sirrah.

TOUCHSTONE

Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat;
though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.

Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE

CELIA

Didst thou hear these verses?

ROSALIND

O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of
them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.

CELIA

That's no matter: the feet might bear the verses.

ROSALIND

Ay, but the feet were lame and could not bear
themselves without the verse and therefore stood
lamely in the verse.