. . .was an actor, and later a shareholder in the theater. The last six years of his life he spent quietly at Stratford.

This song is from the comedy As You Like It, a story of the adventures of a group of courtiers and rustics in the forest of Arden. A charming element in Shakespeare’s romantic comedies is the introduction of song-poems or lyrics. All the writers of those days, the days of Good Queen Bess, wrote songs. England was “a nest of singing birds.” They were real songs, too, filled with joy and musical language, and all the people sang them to the accompaniment of the quaint musical instruments of the time. And all the people took part in games and pageants in “Merrie England,” and listened to the strange tales of seafarers, and went to the playhouse to see Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

Discussion. 1. Why is the thought of green holly appropriate in connection with the winter wind? 2. What feeling does ingratitude. . . Read More