If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 1.

Still so gently o'er me stealing,

Mem'ry will bring back the feeling,

Spite of all my grief revealing,

That I love thee,—that I dearly love thee still.

Opera of La Sonnambula.

In vain we call old notions fudge,

And bend our conscience to our dealing;

The Ten Commandments will not budge,

And stealing will continue stealing.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): Motto of the American Copyright League (written Nov. 20, 1885).