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These forums are being phased out. The new, improved THE GREAT BOOKS Forum is at westerncanon.com/bookforums.
Ahoy fellow travelers and Great Books lovers!

The former post was deleted as it violated our user agreement, or it did not add to the "Great Books" conversation in a constructive manner.

The new THE GREAT BOOKS Forum may be found at http://westerncanon.com/bookforums/forumdisplay.php?f=2 .

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Please register at http://westerncanon.com/bookforums to post in the future.

We prefer deep reflections on Philosophy, Shakespearean Sonnets, and tender musings along the lines of:

XXXIX

O! how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this, let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give
That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone.
O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive, 
  And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
  By praising him here who doth hence remain.
 
XL

Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;
But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
And yet, love knows it is a greater grief
To bear greater wrong, than hate's known injury.
  Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
  Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.
 	--William Shakespeare

CXXIII

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
And rather make them born to our desire
Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past,
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste.
  This I do vow and this shall ever be;
  I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.
 	--William Shakespeare

It is our continuing goal to foster the world's greatest converstation.

In the future, please register and make all posts to http://westerncanon.com/bookforums,

and/or join the forums at Great Books & Philosophy Forums @ jollyrogerwest.com.

It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it. -Voltaire, Taste, 1764

All The Best,

William Einstein Shakespeare :)

XLVII

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other:
When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thy self away, art present still with me;
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee;
  Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
  Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.
 	--William Shakespeare