A Midsummer Night's Dream (excerpts): Lovers and mad men have such seething brains

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Lovers and mad men have such seething brains,Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend moreThan cool reason ever comprehends.The lunatic, the lover, and the poetAre of imagination all compact.One sees more devils than vast hell can hold:That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet's penTurns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.Such tricks hath strong imaginationThat if it would but apprehend some joy,It comprehends some bringer of that joy;Or in the night, imagining some fear,How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear?

© William Shakespeare