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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Carol Rumens

Poem of the week: Are they shadows … by Samuel Daniel

‘These pleasures vanish fast, / Which by shadows are expressed’ … a scene from the RSC production of  A Midsummer Night's Dream.
‘These pleasures vanish fast, / Which by shadows are expressed’ … a scene from the 1994 RSC production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Are they shadows …

Are they shadows that we see?
And can shadows pleasure give?
Pleasures only shadows be
Cast by bodies we conceive,
And are made the things we deem,
In those figures which they seem.

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