Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year

by Allie Esiri

slip the dogs of war,

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them,

Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Antony, Claps on his sea wing and, like a doting mallard, Leaving the fight in height, flies after her. I never saw an action of such shame. Experience, manhood, honour, ne’er before Did violate so itself.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet muskroses and with eglantine.