William Shakespeare

Anne Barton

Shakespeare's play about the workings of magic on a mysterious island is accompanied by commentary

Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared 

Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats 

Instinctively had quit it: there they hoist us, 

To cry to the sea that roar'd to us; to sigh 

To the winds, whose pity, sighing back again,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and 

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 

The solemn temples, the great globe itselt, 

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 

As dreams are made on; and our little life 