THE SEVEN AGES
All the world's a stage
And all man and woman merely players
They have their exits and entrance
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages, at first the infant
Mewing and pucking in the nurse's arms
Then the whining school boy, with the satchet
And shining morning face creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school, and then to lover.
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress eyebrows then a soldier
Full of strange oaths and bearded like a pard
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel
Seeking the bubble reputation.
Even in cannon's mouth and then the justice
In fair round belly with good capon lined
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut
Full of wise saws and modern instances
And so he played his part, the sixth age shifts.
Into the lean and slippered pentaloon
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side
