William Shakespeare
Sonnets
I | ||
From fairest creatures we desire increase, | ||
That thereby beauty's rose might never die, | ||
But as the riper should by time decease, | ||
His tender heir might bear his memory: | ||
5 | But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes, | |
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, | ||
Making a famine where abundance lies, | ||
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel: | ||
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament, | ||
10 | And only herald to the gaudy spring, | |
Within thine own bud buriest thy content, | ||
And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding: | ||
Pity the world, or else this glutton be, | ||
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. | ||
II | ||
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, | ||
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, | ||
Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now, | ||
Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held: | ||
5 | Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies, | |
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days; | ||
To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes, | ||
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise. | ||
How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use, | ||
10 | If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine | |
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,' | ||
Proving his beauty by succession thine! | ||
This were to be new made when thou art old, | ||
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold. | ||
III | ||
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest | ||
Now is the time that face should form another; | ||
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, | ||
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. | ||
5 | For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb | |
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? | ||
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb, | ||
Of his self-love to stop posterity? | ||
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee | ||
10 | Calls back the lovely April of her prime; | |
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, | ||
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time. | ||
But if thou live, remember'd not to be, | ||
Die single and thine image dies with thee. | ||
IV | ||
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend | ||
Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy? | ||
Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, | ||
And being frank she lends to those are free: | ||
5 | Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse | |
The bounteous largess given thee to give? | ||
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use | ||
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live? | ||
For having traffic with thy self alone, | ||
10 | Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive: | |
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone, | ||
What acceptable audit canst thou leave? | ||
Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee, | ||
Which, used, lives th' executor to be. | ||
V | ||
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame | ||
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, | ||
Will play the tyrants to the very same | ||
And that unfair which fairly doth excel; | ||
5 | For never-resting time leads summer on | |
To hideous winter, and confounds him there; | ||
Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone, | ||
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where: | ||
Then were not summer's distillation left, | ||
10 | A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, | |
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, | ||
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was: | ||
But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet, | ||
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet. | ||
VI | ||
Then let not winter's ragged hand deface, | ||
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd: | ||
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place | ||
With beauty's treasure ere it be self-kill'd. | ||
5 | That use is not forbidden usury, | |
Which happies those that pay the willing loan; | ||
That's for thy self to breed another thee, | ||
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one; | ||
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art, | ||
10 | If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee: | |
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart, | ||
Leaving thee living in posterity? | ||
Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair | ||
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir. | ||
VII | ||
Lo! in the orient when the gracious light | ||
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye | ||
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, | ||
Serving with looks his sacred majesty; | ||
5 | And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill, | |
Resembling strong youth in his middle age, | ||
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, | ||
Attending on his golden pilgrimage: | ||
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car, | ||
10 | Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, | |
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are | ||
From his low tract, and look another way: | ||
So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon: | ||
Unlook'd, on diest unless thou get a son. | ||
VIII | ||
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? | ||
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy: | ||
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly, | ||
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy? | ||
5 | If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, | |
By unions married, do offend thine ear, | ||
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds | ||
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. | ||
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, | ||
10 | Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; | |
Resembling sire and child and happy mother, | ||
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing: | ||
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one, | ||
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.' | ||
IX | ||
Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye, | ||
That thou consum'st thy self in single life? | ||
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die, | ||
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife; | ||
5 | The world will be thy widow and still weep | |
That thou no form of thee hast left behind, | ||
When every private widow well may keep | ||
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind: | ||
Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend | ||
10 | Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it; | |
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end, | ||
And kept unused the user so destroys it. | ||
No love toward others in that bosom sits | ||
That on himself such murd'rous shame commits. | ||
X | ||
For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any, | ||
Who for thy self art so unprovident. | ||
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many, | ||
But that thou none lov'st is most evident: | ||
5 | For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate, | |
That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire, | ||
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate | ||
Which to repair should be thy chief desire. | ||
O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind: | ||
10 | Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love? | |
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind, | ||
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove: | ||
Make thee another self for love of me, | ||
That beauty still may live in thine or thee. | ||
XI | ||
As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st, | ||
In one of thine, from that which thou departest; | ||
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st, | ||
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest, | ||
5 | Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase; | |
Without this folly, age, and cold decay: | ||
If all were minded so, the times should cease | ||
And threescore year would make the world away. | ||
Let those whom nature hath not made for store, | ||
10 | Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish: | |
Look, whom she best endow'd, she gave thee more; | ||
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish: | ||
She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant thereby, | ||
Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die. | ||
XII | ||
When I do count the clock that tells the time, | ||
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; | ||
When I behold the violet past prime, | ||
And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white; | ||
5 | When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, | |
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, | ||
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves, | ||
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, | ||
Then of thy beauty do I question make, | ||
10 | That thou among the wastes of time must go, | |
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake | ||
And die as fast as they see others grow; | ||
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence | ||
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. | ||
XIII | ||
O! that you were your self; but, love you are | ||
No longer yours, than you your self here live: | ||
Against this coming end you should prepare, | ||
And your sweet semblance to some other give: | ||
5 | So should that beauty which you hold in lease | |
Find no determination; then you were | ||
Yourself again, after yourself's decease, | ||
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. | ||
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay, | ||
10 | Which husbandry in honour might uphold, | |
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day | ||
And barren rage of death's eternal cold? | ||
O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know, | ||
You had a father: let your son say so. | ||
XIV | ||
Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck; | ||
And yet methinks I have astronomy, | ||
But not to tell of good or evil luck, | ||
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality; | ||
5 | Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell, | |
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind, | ||
Or say with princes if it shall go well | ||
By oft predict that I in heaven find: | ||
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, | ||
10 | And constant stars in them I read such art | |
As 'Truth and beauty shall together thrive, | ||
If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert'; | ||
Or else of thee this I prognosticate: | ||
'Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.' | ||
XV | ||
When I consider every thing that grows | ||
Holds in perfection but a little moment, | ||
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows | ||
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; | ||
5 | When I perceive that men as plants increase, | |
Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky, | ||
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, | ||
And wear their brave state out of memory; | ||
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay | ||
10 | Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, | |
Where wasteful Time debateth with decay | ||
To change your day of youth to sullied night, | ||
And all in war with Time for love of you, | ||
As he takes from you, I engraft you new. | ||
XVI | ||
But wherefore do not you a mightier way | ||
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time? | ||
And fortify your self in your decay | ||
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme? | ||
5 | Now stand you on the top of happy hours, | |
And many maiden gardens, yet unset, | ||
With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers, | ||
Much liker than your painted counterfeit: | ||
So should the lines of life that life repair, | ||
10 | Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen, | |
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair, | ||
Can make you live your self in eyes of men. | ||
To give away yourself, keeps yourself still, | ||
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill. | ||
XVII | ||
Who will believe my verse in time to come, | ||
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts? | ||
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb | ||
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts. | ||
5 | If I could write the beauty of your eyes, | |
And in fresh numbers number all your graces, | ||
The age to come would say 'This poet lies; | ||
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.' | ||
So should my papers, yellow'd with their age, | ||
10 | Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue, | |
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage | ||
And stretched metre of an antique song: | ||
But were some child of yours alive that time, | ||
You should live twice,—in it, and in my rhyme. | ||
XVIII | ||
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? | ||
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: | ||
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, | ||
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: | ||
5 | Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, | |
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd, | ||
And every fair from fair sometime declines, | ||
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd: | ||
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, | ||
10 | Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, | |
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, | ||
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, | ||
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, | ||
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. | ||
XIX | ||
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws, | ||
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood; | ||
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, | ||
And burn the long-liv'd phoenix, in her blood; | ||
5 | Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, | |
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, | ||
To the wide world and all her fading sweets; | ||
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime: | ||
O! carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, | ||
10 | Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen; | |
Him in thy course untainted do allow | ||
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. | ||
Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong, | ||
My love shall in my verse ever live young. | ||
XX | ||
A woman's face with nature's own hand painted, | ||
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion; | ||
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted | ||
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion: | ||
5 | An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, | |
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; | ||
A man in hue all 'hues' in his controlling, | ||
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth. | ||
And for a woman wert thou first created; | ||
10 | Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, | |
And by addition me of thee defeated, | ||
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. | ||
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure, | ||
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure. | ||
XXI | ||
So is it not with me as with that Muse, | ||
Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse, | ||
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use | ||
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, | ||
5 | Making a couplement of proud compare' | |
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, | ||
With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare, | ||
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems. | ||
O! let me, true in love, but truly write, | ||
10 | And then believe me, my love is as fair | |
As any mother's child, though not so bright | ||
As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air: | ||
Let them say more that like of hearsay well; | ||
I will not praise that purpose not to sell. | ||
XXII | ||
My glass shall not persuade me I am old, | ||
So long as youth and thou are of one date; | ||
But when in thee time's furrows I behold, | ||
Then look I death my days should expiate. | ||
5 | For all that beauty that doth cover thee, | |
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, | ||
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me: | ||
How can I then be elder than thou art? | ||
O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary | ||
10 | As I, not for myself, but for thee will; | |
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary | ||
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill. | ||
Presume not on th;heart when mine is slain, | ||
Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again. | ||
XXIII | ||
As an unperfect actor on the stage, | ||
Who with his fear is put beside his part, | ||
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, | ||
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart; | ||
5 | So I, for fear of trust, forget to say | |
The perfect ceremony of love's rite, | ||
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, | ||
O'ercharg'd with burthen of mine own love's might. | ||
O! let my looks be then the eloquence | ||
10 | And dumb presagers of my speaking breast, | |
Who plead for love, and look for recompense, | ||
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd. | ||
O! learn to read what silent love hath writ: | ||
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit. | ||
XXIV | ||
Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd, | ||
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart; | ||
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held, | ||
And perspective it is best painter's art. | ||
5 | For through the painter must you see his skill, | |
To find where your true image pictur'd lies, | ||
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still, | ||
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes. | ||
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done: | ||
10 | Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me | |
Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun | ||
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee; | ||
Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art, | ||
They draw but what they see, know not the heart. | ||
XXV | ||
Let those who are in favour with their stars | ||
Of public honour and proud titles boast, | ||
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars | ||
Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most. | ||
5 | Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread | |
But as the marigold at the sun's eye, | ||
And in themselves their pride lies buried, | ||
For at a frown they in their glory die. | ||
The painful warrior famoused for fight, | ||
10 | After a thousand victories once foil'd, | |
Is from the book of honour razed quite, | ||
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd: | ||
Then happy I, that love and am belov'd, | ||
Where I may not remove nor be remov'd. | ||
XXVI | ||
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage | ||
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, | ||
To thee I send this written embassage, | ||
To witness duty, not to show my wit: | ||
5 | Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine | |
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it, | ||
But that I hope some good conceit of thine | ||
In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it: | ||
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving, | ||
10 | Points on me graciously with fair aspect, | |
And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving, | ||
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect: | ||
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee; | ||
Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me. | ||
XXVII | ||
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, | ||
The dear respose for limbs with travel tir'd; | ||
But then begins a journey in my head | ||
To work my mind, when body's work's expired: | ||
5 | For then my thoughts—from far where I abide— | |
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, | ||
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, | ||
Looking on darkness which the blind do see: | ||
Save that my soul's imaginary sight | ||
10 | Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, | |
Which, like a jewel (hung in ghastly night, | ||
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. | ||
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind, | ||
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find. | ||
XXVIII | ||
How can I then return in happy plight, | ||
That am debarre'd the benefit of rest? | ||
When day's oppression is not eas'd by night, | ||
But day by night and night by day oppress'd, | ||
5 | And each, though enemies to either's reign, | |
Do in consent shake hands to torture me, | ||
The one by toil, the other to complain | ||
How far I toil, still farther off from thee. | ||
I tell the day, to please him thou art bright, | ||
10 | And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven: | |
So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night, | ||
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even. | ||
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, | ||
And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger. | ||
XXIX | ||
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes | ||
I all alone beweep my outcast state, | ||
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, | ||
And look upon myself, and curse my fate, | ||
5 | Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, | |
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, | ||
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, | ||
With what I most enjoy contented least; | ||
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising, | ||
10 | Haply I think on thee,— and then my state, | |
Like to the lark at break of day arising | ||
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate,; | ||
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings | ||
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. | ||
XXX | ||
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought | ||
I summon up remembrance of things past, | ||
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, | ||
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: | ||
5 | Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, | |
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, | ||
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, | ||
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: | ||
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, | ||
10 | And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er | |
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, | ||
Which I new pay as if not paid before. | ||
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, | ||
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end. | ||
XXXI | ||
Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, | ||
Which I by lacking have supposed dead; | ||
And there reigns Love, and all Love's loving parts, | ||
And all those friends which I thought buried. | ||
5 | How many a holy and obsequious tear | |
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye, | ||
As interest of the dead, which now appear | ||
But things remov'd that hidden in thee lie! | ||
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, | ||
10 | Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, | |
Who all their parts of me to thee did give, | ||
That due of many now is thine alone: | ||
Their images I lov'd, I view in thee, | ||
And thou—all they—hast all the all of me. | ||
XXXII | ||
If thou survive my well-contented day, | ||
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover | ||
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey | ||
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, | ||
5 | Compare them with the bett'ring of the time, | |
And though they be outstripp'd by every pen, | ||
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, | ||
Exceeded by the height of happier men. | ||
O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: | ||
10 | 'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, | |
A dearer birth than this his love had brought, | ||
To march in ranks of better equipage: | ||
But since he died and poets better prove, | ||
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'. | ||
XXXIII | ||
Full many a glorious morning have I seen | ||
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, | ||
Kissing with golden face the meadows green, | ||
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; | ||
5 | Anon permit the basest clouds to ride | |
With ugly rack on his celestial face, | ||
And from the forlorn world his visage hide, | ||
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: | ||
Even so my sun one early morn did shine, | ||
10 | With all triumphant splendour on my brow; | |
But out! alack! he was but one hour mine, | ||
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now. | ||
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; | ||
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth. | ||
XXXIV | ||
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day, | ||
And make me travel forth without my cloak, | ||
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way, | ||
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke? | ||
5 | 'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break, | |
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, | ||
For no man well of such a salve can speak, | ||
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace: | ||
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief; | ||
10 | Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss: | |
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief | ||
To him that bears the strong offence's cross. | ||
Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds, | ||
And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds. | ||
XXXV | ||
No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done: | ||
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud: | ||
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, | ||
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. | ||
5 | All men make faults, and even I in this, | |
Authorizing thy trespass with compare, | ||
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss, | ||
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are; | ||
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,— | ||
10 | Thy adverse party is thy advocate,— | |
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence: | ||
Such civil war is in my love and hate, | ||
That I an accessary needs must be, | ||
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me. | ||
XXXVI | ||
Let me confess that we two must be twain, | ||
Although our undivided loves are one: | ||
So shall those blots that do with me remain, | ||
Without thy help, by me be borne alone. | ||
5 | In our two loves there is but one respect, | |
Though in our lives a separable spite, | ||
Which though it alter not love's sole effect, | ||
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight. | ||
I may not evermore acknowledge thee, | ||
10 | Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame, | |
Nor thou with public kindness honour me, | ||
Unless thou take that honour from thy name: | ||
But do not so, I love thee in such sort, | ||
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report. | ||
XXXVII | ||
As a decrepit father takes delight | ||
To see his active child do deeds of youth, | ||
So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite, | ||
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth; | ||
5 | For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, | |
Or any of these all, or all, or more, | ||
Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit, | ||
I make my love engrafted, to this store: | ||
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd, | ||
10 | Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give | |
That I in thy abundance am suffic'd, | ||
And by a part of all thy glory live. | ||
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee: | ||
This wish I have; then ten times happy me! | ||
XXXVIII | ||
How can my muse want subject to invent, | ||
While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse | ||
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent | ||
For every vulgar paper to rehearse? | ||
5 | O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me | |
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight; | ||
For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee, | ||
When thou thy self dost give invention light? | ||
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth | ||
10 | Than those old nine which rhymers invocate; | |
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth | ||
Eternal numbers to outlive long date. | ||
If my slight muse do please these curious days, | ||
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise. | ||
XXXIX | ||
O! how thy worth with manners may I sing, | ||
When thou art all the better part of me? | ||
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? | ||
And what is't but mine own when I praise thee? | ||
5 | Even for this, let us divided live, | |
And our dear love lose name of single one, | ||
That by this separation I may give | ||
That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone. | ||
O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove, | ||
10 | Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave, | |
To entertain the time with thoughts of love, | ||
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive, | ||
And that thou teachest how to make one twain, | ||
By praising him here who doth hence remain. | ||
XL | ||
Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all; | ||
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? | ||
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call; | ||
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more. | ||
5 | Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest, | |
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest; | ||
But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest | ||
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest. | ||
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, | ||
10 | Although thou steal thee all my poverty: | |
And yet, love knows it is a greater grief | ||
To bear greater wrong, than hate's known injury. | ||
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows, | ||
Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes. | ||
XLI | ||
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits, | ||
When I am sometime absent from thy heart, | ||
Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits, | ||
For still temptation follows where thou art. | ||
5 | Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won, | |
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd; | ||
And when a woman woos, what woman's son | ||
Will sourly leave her till he have prevail'd? | ||
Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear, | ||
10 | And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth, | |
Who lead thee in their riot even there | ||
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:— | ||
Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee, | ||
Thine by thy beauty being false to me. | ||
XLII | ||
That thou hast her it is not all my grief, | ||
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly; | ||
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief, | ||
A loss in love that touches me more nearly. | ||
5 | Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye: | |
Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her; | ||
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, | ||
Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her. | ||
If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain, | ||
10 | And losing her, my friend hath found that loss; | |
Both find each other, and I lose both twain, | ||
And both for my sake lay on me this cross: | ||
But here's the joy; my friend and I are one; | ||
Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone. | ||
XLIII | ||
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, | ||
For all the day they view things unrespected; | ||
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, | ||
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed. | ||
5 | Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, | |
How would thy shadow's form form happy show | ||
To the clear day with thy much clearer light, | ||
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! | ||
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made | ||
10 | By looking on thee in the living day, | |
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade | ||
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay! | ||
All days are nights to see till I see thee, | ||
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. | ||
XLIV | ||
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, | ||
Injurious distance should not stop my way; | ||
For then despite of space I would be brought, | ||
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay. | ||
5 | No matter then although my foot did stand | |
Upon the farthest earth remov'd from thee; | ||
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land, | ||
As soon as think the place where he would be. | ||
But, ah! thought kills me that I am not thought, | ||
10 | To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone, | |
But that so much of earth and water wrought, | ||
I must attend, time's leisure with my moan; | ||
Receiving nought by elements so slow | ||
But heavy tears, badges of either's woe. | ||
XLV | ||
The other two, slight air, and purging fire | ||
Are both with thee, wherever I abide; | ||
The first my thought, the other my desire, | ||
These present-absent with swift motion slide. | ||
5 | For when these quicker elements are gone | |
In tender embassy of love to thee, | ||
My life, being made of four, with two alone | ||
Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy; | ||
Until life's composition be recur'd | ||
10 | By those swift messengers return'd from thee, | |
Who even but now come back again, assur'd, | ||
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me: | ||
This told, I joy; but then no longer glad, | ||
I send them back again, and straight grow sad. | ||
XLVI | ||
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war, | ||
How to divide the conquest of thy sight; | ||
Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar, | ||
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right. | ||
5 | My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,— | |
A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes— | ||
But the defendant doth that plea deny, | ||
And says in him thy fair appearance lies. | ||
To side this title is impannelled | ||
10 | A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart; | |
And by their verdict is determined | ||
The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part: | ||
As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part, | ||
And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart. | ||
XLVII | ||
Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, | ||
And each doth good turns now unto the other: | ||
When that mine eye is famish'd for a look, | ||
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, | ||
5 | With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, | |
And to the painted banquet bids my heart; | ||
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest, | ||
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part: | ||
So, either by thy picture or my love, | ||
10 | Thy self away, art present still with me; | |
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move, | ||
And I am still with them, and they with thee; | ||
Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight | ||
Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight. | ||
XLVIII | ||
How careful was I when I took my way, | ||
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust, | ||
That to my use it might unused stay | ||
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust! | ||
5 | But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are, | |
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief, | ||
Thou best of dearest, and mine only care, | ||
Art left the prey of every vulgar thief. | ||
Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest, | ||
10 | Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art, | |
Within the gentle closure of my breast, | ||
From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part; | ||
And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear, | ||
For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear. | ||
XLIX | ||
Against that time, if ever that time come, | ||
When I shall see thee frown on my defects, | ||
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum, | ||
Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects; | ||
5 | Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass, | |
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye, | ||
When love, converted from the thing it was, | ||
Shall reasons find of settled gravity; | ||
Against that time do I ensconce me here, | ||
10 | Within the knowledge of mine own desert, | |
And this my hand, against my self uprear, | ||
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part: | ||
To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws, | ||
Since why to love I can allege no cause. | ||
L | ||
How heavy do I journey on the way, | ||
When what I seek, my weary travel's end, | ||
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say, | ||
'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!' | ||
5 | The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, | |
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me, | ||
As if by some instinct the wretch did know | ||
His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee: | ||
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on, | ||
10 | That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide, | |
Which heavily he answers with a groan, | ||
More sharp to me than spurring to his side; | ||
For that same groan doth put this in my mind, | ||
My grief lies onward, and my joy behind. | ||
LI | ||
Thus can my love excuse the slow offence | ||
Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed: | ||
From where thou art why should I haste me thence? | ||
Till I return, of posting is no need. | ||
5 | O! what excuse will my poor beast then find, | |
When swift extremity can seem but slow? | ||
Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind, | ||
In winged speed n:motion shall I know, | ||
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace; | ||
10 | Therefore desire, of perfect'st love being made, | |
Shall neigh—no dull flesh—in his fiery race; | ||
But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,— | ||
'Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow, | ||
Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.' | ||
LII | ||
So am I as the rich, whose blessed key, | ||
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure, | ||
The which he will not every hour survey, | ||
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. | ||
5 | Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare, | |
Since, seldom coming in that long year set, | ||
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are, | ||
Or captain jewels in the carcanet. | ||
So is the time that keeps you as my chest, | ||
10 | Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide, | |
To make some special instant special-blest, | ||
By new unfolding his imprison'd pride. | ||
Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope, | ||
Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope. | ||
LIII | ||
What is your substance, whereof are you made, | ||
That millions of strange shadows on you tend? | ||
Since every one, hath every one, one shade, | ||
And you but one, can every shadow lend. | ||
5 | Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit | |
Is poorly imitated after you; | ||
On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set, | ||
And you in Grecian tires are painted new: | ||
Speak of the spring, and foison of the year, | ||
10 | The one doth shadow of your beauty show, | |
The other as your bounty doth appear; | ||
And you in every blessed shape we know. | ||
In all external grace you have some part, | ||
But you like none, none you, for constant heart. | ||
LIV | ||
O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem | ||
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give. | ||
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem | ||
For that sweet odour, which doth in it live. | ||
5 | The canker blooms have full as deep a dye | |
As the perfumed tincture of the roses. | ||
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly | ||
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses: | ||
But, for their virtue only is their show, | ||
10 | They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade; | |
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; | ||
Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made: | ||
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, | ||
When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth. | ||
LV | ||
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments | ||
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; | ||
But you shall shine more bright in these contents | ||
Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time. | ||
5 | When wasteful war shall statues overturn, | |
And broils root out the work of masonry, | ||
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn | ||
The living record of your memory. | ||
'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity | ||
10 | Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room | |
Even in the eyes of all posterity | ||
That wear this world out to the ending doom. | ||
So, till the judgment that yourself arise, | ||
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. | ||
LVI | ||
Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said | ||
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, | ||
Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd, | ||
To-morrow sharpened in his former might: | ||
5 | So, love, be thou, although to-day thou fill | |
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness, | ||
To-morrow see again, and do not kill | ||
The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness. | ||
Let this sad interim like the ocean be | ||
10 | Which parts the shore, where two contracted new | |
Come daily to the banks, that when they see | ||
Return of love, more blest may be the view; | ||
Or call it winter, which being full of care, | ||
Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare. | ||
LVII | ||
Being your slave what should I do but tend, | ||
Upon the hours, and times of your desire? | ||
I have no precious time at all to spend; | ||
Nor services to do, till you require. | ||
5 | Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour, | |
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, | ||
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour, | ||
When you have bid your servant once adieu; | ||
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought | ||
10 | Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, | |
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought | ||
Save, where you are, how happy you make those. | ||
So true a fool is love, that in your will, | ||
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill. | ||
LVIII | ||
That god forbid, that made me first your slave, | ||
I should in thought control your times of pleasure, | ||
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave, | ||
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure! | ||
5 | O! let me suffer, being at your beck, | |
The imprison'd absence of your liberty; | ||
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check, | ||
Without accusing you of injury. | ||
Be where you list, your charter is so strong | ||
10 | That you yourself may privilage your time | |
To what you will; to you it doth belong | ||
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime. | ||
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell, | ||
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well. | ||
LIX | ||
If there be nothing new, but that which is | ||
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd, | ||
Which labouring for invention bear amiss | ||
The second burthen of a former child! | ||
5 | O! that record could with a backward look, | |
Even of five hundred courses of the sun, | ||
Show me your image in some antique book, | ||
Since mind at first in character was done! | ||
That I might see what the old world could say | ||
10 | To this composed wonder of your frame; | |
Wh'r we are mended, or wh'r better they, | ||
Or whether revolution be the same. | ||
O! sure I am the wits of former days, | ||
To subjects worse have given admiring praise. | ||
LX | ||
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, | ||
So do our minutes hasten to their end; | ||
Each changing place with that which goes before, | ||
In sequent toil all forwards do contend. | ||
5 | Nativity, once in the main of light, | |
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, | ||
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, | ||
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. | ||
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth | ||
10 | And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, | |
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth, | ||
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow: | ||
And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand. | ||
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. | ||
LXI | ||
Is it thy will, thy image should keep open | ||
My heavy eyelids to the weary night? | ||
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken, | ||
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight? | ||
5 | Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee | |
So far from home into my deeds to pry, | ||
To find out shames and idle hours in me, | ||
The scope and tenure of thy jealousy? | ||
O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great: | ||
10 | It is my love that keeps mine eye awake: | |
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, | ||
To play the watchman ever for thy sake: | ||
For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, | ||
From me far off, with others all too near. | ||
LXII | ||
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye | ||
And all my soul, and all my every part; | ||
And for this sin there is no remedy, | ||
It is so grounded inward in my heart. | ||
5 | Methinks no face so gracious is as mine, | |
No shape so true, no truth of such account; | ||
And for myself mine own worth do define, | ||
As I all other in all worths surmount. | ||
But when my glass shows me myself indeed | ||
10 | Beated and chopp'd with tanned antiquity, | |
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read; | ||
Self so self-loving were iniquity. | ||
'Tis thee,—myself,—that for myself I praise, | ||
Painting my age with beauty of thy days. | ||
LXIII | ||
Against my love shall be as I am now, | ||
With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn; | ||
When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow | ||
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn | ||
5 | Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night; | |
And all those beauties whereof now he's king | ||
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight, | ||
Stealing away the treasure of his spring; | ||
For such a time do I now fortify | ||
10 | Against confounding age's cruel knife, | |
That he shall never cut from memory | ||
My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life: | ||
His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, | ||
And they shall live, and he in them still green. | ||
LXIV | ||
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd | ||
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age; | ||
When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd, | ||
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; | ||
5 | When I have seen the hungry ocean gain | |
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, | ||
And the firm soil win of the watery main, | ||
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store; | ||
When I have seen such interchange of state, | ||
10 | Or state itself confounded, to decay; | |
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate— | ||
That Time will come and take my love away. | ||
This thought is as a death which cannot choose | ||
But weep to have, that which it fears to lose. | ||
LXV | ||
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, | ||
But sad mortality o'ersways their power, | ||
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, | ||
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? | ||
5 | O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out, | |
Against the wrackful siege of battering days, | ||
When rocks impregnable are not so stout, | ||
Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays? | ||
O fearful meditation! where, alack, | ||
10 | Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid? | |
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? | ||
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? | ||
O! none, unless this miracle have might, | ||
That in black ink my love may still shine bright. | ||
LXVI | ||
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, | ||
As to behold desert a beggar born, | ||
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, | ||
And purest faith unhappily forsworn, | ||
5 | And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd, | |
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, | ||
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, | ||
And strength by limping sway disabled | ||
And art made tongue-tied by authority, | ||
10 | And folly—doctor-like—controlling skill, | |
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, | ||
And captive good attending captain ill: | ||
Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone, | ||
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. | ||
LXVII | ||
Ah! wherefore with infection should he live, | ||
And with his presence grace impiety, | ||
That sin by him advantage should achieve, | ||
And lace itself with his society? | ||
5 | Why should false painting imitate his cheek, | |
And steel dead seeming of his living hue? | ||
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek | ||
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true? | ||
Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is, | ||
10 | Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins? | |
For she hath no exchequer now but his, | ||
And proud of many, lives upon his gains. | ||
O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had | ||
In days long since, before these last so bad. | ||
LXVIII | ||
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, | ||
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now, | ||
Before these bastard signs of fair were born, | ||
Or durst inhabit on a living brow; | ||
5 | Before the golden tresses of the dead, | |
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away, | ||
To live a second life on second head; | ||
Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay: | ||
In him those holy antique hours are seen, | ||
10 | Without all ornament, itself and true, | |
Making no summer of another's green, | ||
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new; | ||
And him as for a map doth Nature store, | ||
To show false Art what beauty was of yore. | ||
LXIX | ||
Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view | ||
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend; | ||
All tongues—the voice of souls—give thee that due, | ||
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend. | ||
5 | Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd; | |
But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own, | ||
In other accents do this praise confound | ||
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown. | ||
They look into the beauty of thy mind, | ||
10 | And that in guess they measure by thy deeds; | |
Then—churls—their thoughts, although their eyes were kind, | ||
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds: | ||
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show, | ||
The soil is this, that thou dost common grow. | ||
LXX | ||
That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect, | ||
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair; | ||
The ornament of beauty is suspect, | ||
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. | ||
5 | So thou be good, slander doth but approve | |
Thy worth the greater being woo'd of time; | ||
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, | ||
And thou present'st a pure unstained prime. | ||
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days | ||
10 | Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd; | |
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise, | ||
To tie up envy, evermore enlarg'd, | ||
If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show, | ||
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe. | ||
LXXI | ||
No longer mourn for me when I am dead | ||
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell | ||
Give warning to the world that I am fled | ||
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: | ||
5 | Nay, if you read this line, remember not | |
The hand that writ it, for I love you so, | ||
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, | ||
If thinking on me then should make you woe. | ||
O! if,—I say you look upon this verse, | ||
10 | When I perhaps compounded am with clay, | |
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse; | ||
But let your love even with my life decay; | ||
Lest the wise world should look into your moan, | ||
And mock you with me after I am gone. | ||
LXXII | ||
O! lest the world should task you to recite | ||
What merit lived in me, that you should love | ||
After my death,—dear love, forget me quite, | ||
For you in me can nothing worthy prove; | ||
5 | Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, | |
To do more for me than mine own desert, | ||
And hang more praise upon deceased I | ||
Than niggard truth would willingly impart: | ||
O! lest your true love may seem false in this | ||
10 | That you for love speak well of me untrue, | |
My name be buried where my body is, | ||
And live no more to shame nor me nor you. | ||
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, | ||
And so should you, to love things nothing worth. | ||
LXXIII | ||
That time of year thou mayst in me behold | ||
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang | ||
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, | ||
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. | ||
5 | In me thou see'st the twilight of such day | |
As after sunset fadeth in the west; | ||
Which by and by black night doth take away, | ||
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. | ||
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, | ||
10 | That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, | |
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire, | ||
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. | ||
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, | ||
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long. | ||
LXXIV | ||
But be contented: when that fell arrest | ||
Without all bail shall carry me away, | ||
My life hath in this line some interest, | ||
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. | ||
5 | When thou reviewest this, thou dost review | |
The very part was consecrate to thee: | ||
The earth can have but earth, which is his due; | ||
My spirit is thine, the better part of me: | ||
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, | ||
10 | The prey of worms, my body being dead; | |
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife, | ||
Too base of thee to be remembered,. | ||
The worth of that is that which it contains, | ||
And that is this, and this with thee remains. | ||
LXXV | ||
So are you to my thoughts as food to life, | ||
Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground; | ||
And for the peace of you I hold such strife | ||
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found. | ||
5 | Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon | |
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; | ||
Now counting best to be with you alone, | ||
Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure: | ||
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, | ||
10 | And by and by clean starved for a look; | |
Possessing or pursuing no delight, | ||
Save what is had, or must from you be took. | ||
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, | ||
Or gluttoning on all, or all away. | ||
LXXVI | ||
Why is my verse so barren of new pride, | ||
So far from variation or quick change? | ||
Why with the time do I not glance aside | ||
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? | ||
5 | Why write I still all one, ever the same, | |
And keep invention in a noted weed, | ||
That every word doth almost tell my name, | ||
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed? | ||
O! know sweet love I always write of you, | ||
10 | And you and love are still my argument; | |
So all my best is dressing old words new, | ||
Spending again what is already spent: | ||
For as the sun is daily new and old, | ||
So is my love still telling what is told. | ||
LXXVII | ||
Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, | ||
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste; | ||
These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear, | ||
And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste. | ||
5 | The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show | |
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory; | ||
Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know | ||
Time's thievish progress to eternity. | ||
Look! what thy memory cannot contain, | ||
10 | Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find | |
Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain, | ||
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. | ||
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look, | ||
Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book. | ||
LXXVIII | ||
So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse, | ||
And found such fair assistance in my verse | ||
As every alien pen hath got my use | ||
And under thee their poesy disperse. | ||
5 | Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing | |
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, | ||
Have added feathers to the learned's wing | ||
And given grace a double majesty. | ||
Yet be most proud of that which I compile, | ||
10 | Whose influence is thine, and born of thee: | |
In others' works thou dost but mend the style, | ||
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be; | ||
But thou art all my art, and dost advance | ||
As high as learning, my rude ignorance. | ||
LXXIX | ||
Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, | ||
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace; | ||
But now my gracious numbers are decay'd, | ||
And my sick Muse doth give an other place. | ||
5 | I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument | |
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen; | ||
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent | ||
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again. | ||
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word | ||
10 | From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give, | |
And found it in thy cheek: he can afford | ||
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live. | ||
Then thank him not for that which he doth say, | ||
Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay. | ||
LXXX | ||
O! how I faint when I of you do write, | ||
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, | ||
And in the praise thereof spends all his might, | ||
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame! | ||
5 | But since your worth—wide as the ocean is,— | |
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, | ||
My saucy bark, inferior far to his, | ||
On your broad main doth wilfully appear. | ||
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, | ||
10 | Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride; | |
Or, being wrack'd, I am a worthless boat, | ||
He of tall building, and of goodly pride: | ||
Then if he thrive and I be cast away, | ||
The worst was this,—my love was my decay. | ||
LXXXI | ||
Or I shall live your epitaph to make, | ||
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten; | ||
From hence your memory death cannot take, | ||
Although in me each part will be forgotten. | ||
5 | Your name from hence immortal life shall have, | |
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die: | ||
The earth can yield me but a common grave, | ||
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie. | ||
Your monument shall be my gentle verse, | ||
10 | Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read; | |
And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse, | ||
When all the breathers of this world are dead; | ||
You still shall live,—such virtue hath my pen,— | ||
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men. | ||
LXXXII | ||
I grant thou wert not married to my Muse, | ||
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook | ||
The dedicated words which writers use | ||
Of their fair subject, blessing every book. | ||
5 | Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue, | |
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise; | ||
And therefore art enforced to seek anew | ||
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days. | ||
And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd, | ||
10 | What strained touches rhetoric can lend, | |
Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathiz'd | ||
In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend; | ||
And their gross painting might be better us'd | ||
Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd. | ||
LXXXIII | ||
I never saw that you did painting need, | ||
And therefore to your fair no painting set; | ||
I found, or thought I found, you did exceed | ||
That barren tender of a poet's debt: | ||
5 | And therefore have I slept in your report, | |
That you yourself, being extant, well might show | ||
How far a modern quill doth come too short, | ||
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. | ||
This silence for my sin you did impute, | ||
10 | Which shall be most my glory being dumb; | |
For I impair not beauty being mute, | ||
When others would give life, and bring a tomb. | ||
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes | ||
Than both your poets can in praise devise. | ||
LXXXIV | ||
Who is it that says most, which can say more, | ||
Than this rich praise,—that you alone, are you? | ||
In whose confine immured is the store | ||
Which should example where your equal grew. | ||
5 | Lean penury within that pen doth dwell | |
That to his subject lends not some small glory; | ||
But he that writes of you, if he can tell | ||
That you are you, so dignifies his story, | ||
Let him but copy what in you is writ, | ||
10 | Not making worse what nature made so clear, | |
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit, | ||
Making his style admired every where. | ||
You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, | ||
Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse. | ||
LXXXV | ||
My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, | ||
While comments of your praise richly compil'd, | ||
Reserve their character with golden quill, | ||
And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd. | ||
5 | I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words, | |
And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen' | ||
To every hymn that able spirit affords, | ||
In polish'd form of well-refined pen. | ||
Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,' | ||
10 | And to the most of praise add something more; | |
But that is in my thought, whose love to you, | ||
Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before. | ||
Then others, for the breath of words respect, | ||
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect. | ||
LXXXVI | ||
Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, | ||
Bound for the prize of all too precious you, | ||
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, | ||
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? | ||
5 | Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write, | |
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? | ||
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night | ||
Giving him aid, my verse astonished. | ||
He, nor that affable familiar ghost | ||
10 | Which nightly gulls him with intelligence, | |
As victors of my silence cannot boast; | ||
I was not sick of any fear from thence: | ||
But when your countenance fill'd up his line, | ||
Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine. | ||
LXXXVII | ||
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, | ||
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate, | ||
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing; | ||
My bonds in thee are all determinate. | ||
5 | For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? | |
And for that riches where is my deserving? | ||
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, | ||
And so my patent back again is swerving. | ||
Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, | ||
10 | Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking; | |
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, | ||
Comes home again, on better judgement making. | ||
Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, | ||
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter. | ||
LXXXVIII | ||
When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light, | ||
And place my merit in the eye of scorn, | ||
Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight, | ||
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn. | ||
5 | With mine own weakness, being best acquainted, | |
Upon thy part I can set down a story | ||
Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted; | ||
That thou in losing me shalt win much glory: | ||
And I by this will be a gainer too; | ||
10 | For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, | |
The injuries that to myself I do, | ||
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me. | ||
Such is my love, to thee I so belong, | ||
That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong. | ||
LXXXIX | ||
Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, | ||
And I will comment upon that offence: | ||
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt, | ||
Against thy reasons making no defence. | ||
5 | Thou canst not love disgrace me half so ill, | |
To set a form upon desired change, | ||
As I'll myself disgrace; knowing thy will, | ||
I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange; | ||
Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue | ||
10 | Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell, | |
Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong, | ||
And haply of our old acquaintance tell. | ||
For thee, against my self I'll vow debate, | ||
For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate. | ||
XC | ||
Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now; | ||
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross, | ||
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, | ||
And do not drop in for an after-loss: | ||
5 | Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow, | |
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe; | ||
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, | ||
To linger out a purpos'd overthrow. | ||
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, | ||
10 | When other petty griefs have done their spite, | |
But in the onset come: so shall I taste | ||
At first the very worst of fortune's might; | ||
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, | ||
Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so. | ||
XCI | ||
Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, | ||
Some in their wealth, some in their body's force, | ||
Some in their garments though new-fangled ill; | ||
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse; | ||
5 | And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, | |
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest: | ||
But these particulars are not my measure, | ||
All these I better in one general best. | ||
Thy love is better than high birth to me, | ||
10 | Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs, | |
Of more delight than hawks and horses be; | ||
And having thee, of all men's pride I boast: | ||
Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take | ||
All this away, and me most wretchcd make. | ||
XCII | ||
But do thy worst to steal thyself away, | ||
For term of life thou art assured mine; | ||
And life no longer than thy love will stay, | ||
For it depends upon that love of thine. | ||
5 | Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, | |
When in the least of them my life hath end. | ||
I see a better state to me belongs | ||
Than that which on thy humour doth depend: | ||
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind, | ||
10 | Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie. | |
O! what a happy title do I find, | ||
Happy to have thy love, happy to die! | ||
But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot? | ||
Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not. | ||
XCIII | ||
So shall I live, supposing thou art true, | ||
Like a deceived husband; so love's face | ||
May still seem love to me, though alter'd new; | ||
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place: | ||
5 | For there can live no hatred in thine eye, | |
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change. | ||
In many's looks, the false heart's history | ||
Is writ in moods, and frowns, and wrinkles strange. | ||
But heaven in thy creation did decree | ||
10 | That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell; | |
Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be, | ||
Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell. | ||
How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow, | ||
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show! | ||
XCIV | ||
They that have power to hurt, and will do none, | ||
That do not do the thing they most do show, | ||
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, | ||
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow; | ||
5 | They rightly do inherit heaven's graces, | |
And husband nature's riches from expense; | ||
They are the lords and owners of their faces, | ||
Others, but stewards of their excellence. | ||
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, | ||
10 | Though to itself, it only live and die, | |
But if that flower with base infection meet, | ||
The basest weed outbraves his dignity: | ||
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; | ||
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds. | ||
XCV | ||
How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame | ||
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose, | ||
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name! | ||
O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose. | ||
5 | That tongue that tells the story of thy days, | |
Making lascivious comments on thy sport, | ||
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise; | ||
Naming thy name, blesses an ill report. | ||
O! what a mansion have those vices got | ||
10 | Which for their habitation chose out thee, | |
Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot | ||
And all things turns to fair that eyes can see! | ||
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege; | ||
The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lose his edge. | ||
XCVI | ||
Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness; | ||
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport; | ||
Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less: | ||
Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort. | ||
5 | As on the finger of a throned queen | |
The basest jewel will be well esteem'd, | ||
So are those errors that in thee are seen | ||
To truths translated, and for true things deem'd. | ||
How many lambs might the stern wolf betray, | ||
10 | If like a lamb he could his looks translate! | |
How many gazers mightst thou lead away, | ||
if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state! | ||
But do not so; I love thee in such sort, | ||
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report. | ||
XCVII | ||
How like a winter hath my absence been | ||
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! | ||
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! | ||
What old December's bareness everywhere! | ||
5 | And yet this time removed was summer's time; | |
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, | ||
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, | ||
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease: | ||
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me | ||
10 | But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit; | |
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, | ||
And, thou away, the very birds are mute: | ||
Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer, | ||
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near. | ||
XCVIII | ||
From you have I been absent in the spring, | ||
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim, | ||
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, | ||
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. | ||
5 | Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell | |
Of different flowers in odour and in hue, | ||
Could make me any summer's story tell, | ||
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: | ||
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, | ||
10 | Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; | |
They were but sweet, but figures of delight, | ||
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. | ||
Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away, | ||
As with your shadow I with these did play. | ||
XCIX | ||
The forward violet thus did I chide: | ||
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, | ||
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride | ||
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells | ||
5 | In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd. | |
The lily I condemned for thy hand, | ||
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair; | ||
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, | ||
One blushing shame, another white despair; | ||
10 | A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both, | |
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath; | ||
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth | ||
A vengeful canker eat him up to death. | ||
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see, | ||
But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee. | ||
C | ||
Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long, | ||
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might? | ||
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song, | ||
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light? | ||
5 | Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem, | |
In gentle numbers time so idly spent; | ||
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem | ||
And gives thy pen both skill and argument. | ||
Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey, | ||
10 | If Time have any wrinkle graven there; | |
If any, be a satire to decay, | ||
And make time's spoils despised every where. | ||
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life, | ||
So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife. | ||
CI | ||
O truant Muse what shall be thy amends | ||
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd? | ||
Both truth and beauty on my love depends; | ||
So dost thou too, and therein dignified. | ||
5 | Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say, | |
'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd; | ||
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay; | ||
But best is best, if never intermix'd'? | ||
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb? | ||
10 | Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee | |
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb | ||
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be. | ||
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how | ||
To make him seem long hence as he shows now. | ||
CII | ||
My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming; | ||
I love not less, though less the show appear; | ||
That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming, | ||
The owner's tongue doth publish every where. | ||
5 | Our love was new, and then but in the spring, | |
When I was wont to greet it with my lays; | ||
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, | ||
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days: | ||
Not that the summer is less pleasant now | ||
10 | Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, | |
But that wild music burthens every bough, | ||
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. | ||
Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue: | ||
Because I would not dull you with my song. | ||
CIII | ||
Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth, | ||
That having such a scope to show her pride, | ||
The argument, all bare, is of more worth | ||
Than when it hath my added praise beside! | ||
5 | O! blame me not, if I no more can write! | |
Look in your glass, and there appears a face | ||
That over-goes my blunt invention quite, | ||
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace. | ||
Were it not sinful then, striving to mend, | ||
10 | To mar the subject that before was well? | |
For to no other pass my verses tend | ||
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell; | ||
And more, much more, than in my verse can sit, | ||
Your own glass shows you when you look in it. | ||
CIV | ||
To me, fair friend, you never can be old, | ||
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd, | ||
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold, | ||
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, | ||
5 | Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd, | |
In process of the seasons have I seen, | ||
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, | ||
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. | ||
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand, | ||
10 | Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd; | |
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, | ||
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd: | ||
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred: | ||
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead. | ||
CV | ||
Let not my love be call'd idolatry, | ||
Nor my beloved as an idol show, | ||
Since all alike my songs and praises be | ||
To one, of one, still such, and ever so. | ||
5 | Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, | |
Still constant in a wondrous excellence; | ||
Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd, | ||
One thing expressing, leaves out difference. | ||
'Fair, kind, and true,' is all my argument, | ||
10 | 'Fair, kind, and true,' varying to other words; | |
And in this change is my invention spent, | ||
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords. | ||
Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone, | ||
Which three till now, never kept seat in one. | ||
CVI | ||
When in the chronicle of wasted time | ||
I see descriptions of the fairest wights, | ||
And beauty making beautiful old rime, | ||
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, | ||
5 | Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, | |
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, | ||
I see their antique pen would have express'd | ||
Even such a beauty as you master now. | ||
So all their praises are but prophecies | ||
10 | Of this our time, all you prefiguring; | |
And for they looked but with divining eyes, | ||
They had not skill enough your worth to sing: | ||
For we, which now behold these present days, | ||
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. | ||
CVII | ||
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul | ||
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, | ||
Can yet the lease of my true love control, | ||
Supposed as forfeit to a confin'd doom. | ||
5 | The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd, | |
And the sad augurs mock their own presage; | ||
Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd, | ||
And peace proclaims olives of endless age. | ||
Now with the drops of this most balmy time, | ||
10 | My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes, | |
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rime, | ||
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes: | ||
And thou in this shalt find thy monument, | ||
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. | ||
CVIII | ||
What's in the brain, that ink may character, | ||
Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit? | ||
What's new to speak, what now to register, | ||
That may express my love, or thy dear merit? | ||
5 | Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine, | |
I must each day say o'er the very same; | ||
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, | ||
Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name. | ||
So that eternal love in love's fresh case, | ||
10 | Weighs not the dust and injury of age, | |
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, | ||
But makes antiquity for aye his page; | ||
Finding the first conceit of love there bred, | ||
Where time and outward form would show it dead. | ||
CIX | ||
O! never say that I was false of heart, | ||
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify, | ||
As easy might I from my self depart | ||
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie: | ||
5 | That is my home of love: if I have rang'd, | |
Like him that travels, I return again; | ||
Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd, | ||
So that myself bring water for my stain. | ||
Never believe though in my nature reign'd, | ||
10 | All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, | |
That it could so preposterously be stain'd, | ||
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good; | ||
For nothing this wide universe I call, | ||
Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all. | ||
CX | ||
Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there, | ||
And made my self a motley to the view, | ||
Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, | ||
Made old offences of affections new; | ||
5 | Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth | |
Askance and strangely; but, by all above, | ||
These blenches gave my heart another youth, | ||
And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love. | ||
Now all is done, save what shall have no end: | ||
10 | Mine appetite I never more will grind | |
On newer proof, to try an older friend, | ||
A god in love, to whom I am confin'd. | ||
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, | ||
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast. | ||
CXI | ||
O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide, | ||
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, | ||
That did not better for my life provide | ||
Than public means which public manners breeds. | ||
5 | Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, | |
And almost thence my nature is subdu'd | ||
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand: | ||
Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd; | ||
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink, | ||
10 | Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection; | |
No bitterness that I will bitter think, | ||
Nor double penance, to correct correction. | ||
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye, | ||
Even that your pity is enough to cure me. | ||
CXII | ||
Your love and pity doth the impression fill, | ||
Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow; | ||
For what care I who calls me well or ill, | ||
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow? | ||
5 | You are my all-the-world, and I must strive | |
To know my shames and praises from your tongue; | ||
None else to me, nor I to none alive, | ||
That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong. | ||
In so profound abysm I throw all care | ||
10 | Of others' voices, that my adder's sense | |
To critic and to flatterer stopped are. | ||
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense: | ||
You are so strongly in my purpose bred, | ||
That all the world besides methinks are dead. | ||
CXIII | ||
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind; | ||
And that which governs me to go about | ||
Doth part his function and is partly blind, | ||
Seems seeing, but effectually is out; | ||
5 | For it no form delivers to the heart | |
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch: | ||
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, | ||
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch; | ||
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight, | ||
10 | The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature, | |
The mountain or the sea, the day or night: | ||
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature. | ||
Incapable of more, replete with you, | ||
My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue. | ||
CXIV | ||
Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, | ||
Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery? | ||
Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true, | ||
And that your love taught it this alchemy, | ||
5 | To make of monsters and things indigest | |
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, | ||
Creating every bad a perfect best, | ||
As fast as objects to his beams assemble? | ||
O! 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing, | ||
10 | And my great mind most kingly drinks it up: | |
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, | ||
And to his palate doth prepare the cup: | ||
If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin | ||
That mine eye loves it and doth first begin. | ||
CXV | ||
Those lines that I before have writ do lie, | ||
Even those that said I could not love you dearer: | ||
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why | ||
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer. | ||
5 | But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents | |
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings, | ||
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, | ||
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things; | ||
Alas! why fearing of Time's tyranny, | ||
10 | Might I not then say, 'Now I love you best,' | |
When I was certain o'er incertainty, | ||
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest? | ||
Love is a babe, then might I not say so, | ||
To give full growth to that which still doth grow? | ||
CXVI | ||
Let me not to the marriage of true minds | ||
Admit impediments. Love is not love | ||
Which alters when it alteration finds, | ||
Or bends with the remover to remove: | ||
5 | O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, | |
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; | ||
It is the star to every wandering bark, | ||
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. | ||
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks | ||
10 | Within his bending sickle's compass come; | |
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, | ||
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. | ||
If this be error and upon me prov'd, | ||
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd. | ||
CXVII | ||
Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all, | ||
Wherein I should your great deserts repay, | ||
Forgot upon your dearest love to call, | ||
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day; | ||
5 | That I have frequent been with unknown minds, | |
And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right; | ||
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds | ||
Which should transport me farthest from your sight. | ||
Book both my wilfulness and errors down, | ||
10 | And on just proof surmise, accumulate; | |
Bring me within the level of your frown, | ||
But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate; | ||
Since my appeal says I did strive to prove | ||
The constancy and virtue of your love. | ||
CXVIII | ||
Like as, to make our appetite more keen, | ||
With eager compounds we our palate urge; | ||
As, to prevent our maladies unseen, | ||
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge; | ||
5 | Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness, | |
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding; | ||
And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness | ||
To be diseas'd, ere that there was true needing. | ||
Thus policy in love, to anticipate | ||
10 | The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd, | |
And brought to medicine a healthful state | ||
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd; | ||
But thence I learn and find the lesson true, | ||
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you. | ||
CXIX | ||
What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, | ||
Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within, | ||
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, | ||
Still losing when I saw myself to win! | ||
5 | What wretched errors hath my heart committed, | |
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never! | ||
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, | ||
In the distraction of this madding fever! | ||
O benefit of ill! now I find true | ||
10 | That better is, by evil still made better; | |
And ruin'd love, when it is built anew, | ||
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. | ||
So I return rebuk'd to my content, | ||
And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent. | ||
CXX | ||
That you were once unkind befriends me now, | ||
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, | ||
Needs must I under my transgression bow, | ||
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel. | ||
5 | For if you were by my unkindness shaken, | |
As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time; | ||
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken | ||
To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime. | ||
O! that our night of woe might have remember'd | ||
10 | My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits, | |
And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd | ||
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits! | ||
But that your trespass now becomes a fee; | ||
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me. | ||
CXXI | ||
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd, | ||
When not to be receives reproach of being; | ||
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd | ||
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing: | ||
5 | For why should others' false adulterate eyes | |
Give salutation to my sportive blood? | ||
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, | ||
Which in their wills count bad what I think good? | ||
No, I am that I am, and they that level | ||
10 | At my abuses reckon up their own: | |
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel; | ||
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown; | ||
Unless this general evil they maintain, | ||
All men are bad and in their badness reign. | ||
CXXII | ||
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain | ||
Full character'd with lasting memory, | ||
Which shall above that idle rank remain, | ||
Beyond all date; even to eternity: | ||
5 | Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart | |
Have faculty by nature to subsist; | ||
Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part | ||
Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd. | ||
That poor retention could not so much hold, | ||
10 | Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score; | |
Therefore to give them from me was I bold, | ||
To trust those tables that receive thee more: | ||
To keep an adjunct to remember thee | ||
Were to import forgetfulness in me. | ||
CXXIII | ||
No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change: | ||
Thy pyramids built up with newer might | ||
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; | ||
They are but dressings of a former sight. | ||
5 | Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire | |
What thou dost foist upon us that is old; | ||
And rather make them born to our desire | ||
Than think that we before have heard them told. | ||
Thy registers and thee I both defy, | ||
10 | Not wondering at the present nor the past, | |
For thy records and what we see doth lie, | ||
Made more or less by thy continual haste. | ||
This I do vow and this shall ever be; | ||
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee. | ||
CXXIV | ||
If my dear love were but the child of state, | ||
It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd, | ||
As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate, | ||
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd. | ||
5 | No, it was builded far from accident; | |
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls | ||
Under the blow of thralled discontent, | ||
Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls: | ||
It fears not policy, that heretic, | ||
10 | Which works on leases of short-number'd hours, | |
But all alone stands hugely politic, | ||
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers. | ||
To this I witness call the fools of time, | ||
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime. | ||
CXXV | ||
Were't aught to me I bore the canopy, | ||
With my extern the outward honouring, | ||
Or laid great bases for eternity, | ||
Which proves more short than waste or ruining? | ||
5 | Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour | |
Lose all and more by paying too much rent | ||
For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour, | ||
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent? | ||
No; let me be obsequious in thy heart, | ||
10 | And take thou my oblation, poor but free, | |
Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art, | ||
But mutual render, only me for thee. | ||
Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul | ||
When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control. | ||
CXXVI | ||
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power | ||
Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour; | ||
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st | ||
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st. | ||
5 | If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, | |
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back, | ||
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill | ||
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill. | ||
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure! | ||
10 | She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure: | |
Her audit (though delayed) answered must be, | ||
And her quietus is to render thee. | ||
CXXVII | ||
In the old age black was not counted fair, | ||
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name; | ||
But now is black beauty's successive heir, | ||
And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame: | ||
5 | For since each hand hath put on Nature's power, | |
Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face, | ||
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower, | ||
But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace. | ||
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black, | ||
10 | Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem | |
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack, | ||
Sland'ring creation with a false esteem: | ||
Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe, | ||
That every tongue says beauty should look so. | ||
CXXXIII | ||
How oft when thou, my music, music play'st, | ||
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds | ||
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st | ||
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, | ||
5 | Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap, | |
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, | ||
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap, | ||
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand! | ||
To be so tickled, they would change their state | ||
10 | And situation with those dancing chips, | |
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, | ||
Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips. | ||
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, | ||
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. | ||
CXXIX | ||
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame | ||
Is lust in action: and till action, lust | ||
Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame, | ||
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; | ||
5 | Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight; | |
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had, | ||
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait, | ||
On purpose laid to make the taker mad: | ||
Mad in pursuit and in possession so; | ||
10 | Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme; | |
A bliss in proof,— and prov'd, a very woe; | ||
Before, a joy propos'd; behind a dream. | ||
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well | ||
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. | ||
CXXX | ||
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; | ||
Coral is far more red, than her lips red: | ||
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; | ||
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. | ||
5 | I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, | |
But no such roses see I in her cheeks; | ||
And in some perfumes is there more delight | ||
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. | ||
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know | ||
10 | That music hath a far more pleasing sound: | |
I grant I never saw a goddess go,— | ||
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: | ||
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, | ||
As any she belied with false compare. | ||
CXXXI | ||
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, | ||
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel; | ||
For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart | ||
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel. | ||
5 | Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold, | |
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan; | ||
To say they err I dare not be so bold, | ||
Although I swear it to myself alone. | ||
And to be sure that is not false I swear, | ||
10 | A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face, | |
One on another's neck, do witness bear | ||
Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place. | ||
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds, | ||
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds. | ||
CXXXII | ||
Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, | ||
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, | ||
Have put on black and loving mourners be, | ||
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. | ||
5 | And truly not the morning sun of heaven | |
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, | ||
Nor that full star that ushers in the even, | ||
Doth half that glory to the sober west, | ||
As those two mourning eyes become thy face: | ||
10 | O! let it then as well beseem thy heart | |
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace, | ||
And suit thy pity like in every part. | ||
Then will I swear beauty herself is black, | ||
And all they foul that thy complexion lack. | ||
CXXXIII | ||
Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan | ||
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me! | ||
Is't not enough to torture me alone, | ||
But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be? | ||
5 | Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken, | |
And my next self thou harder hast engross'd: | ||
Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken; | ||
A torment thrice three-fold thus to be cross'd: | ||
Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward, | ||
10 | But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail; | |
Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard; | ||
Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail: | ||
And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee, | ||
Perforce am thine, and all that is in me. | ||
CXXXIV | ||
So, now I have confess'd that he is thine, | ||
And I my self am mortgag'd to thy will, | ||
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine | ||
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still: | ||
5 | But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, | |
For thou art covetous, and he is kind; | ||
He learn'd but surety-like to write for me, | ||
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind. | ||
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, | ||
10 | Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use, | |
And sue a friend came debtor for my sake; | ||
So him I lose through my unkind abuse. | ||
Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me: | ||
He pays the whole, and yet am I not free. | ||
CXXXV | ||
Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,' | ||
And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus; | ||
More than enough am I that vex'd thee still, | ||
To thy sweet will making addition thus. | ||
5 | Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, | |
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? | ||
Shall will in others seem right gracious, | ||
And in my will no fair acceptance shine? | ||
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still, | ||
10 | And in abundance addeth to his store; | |
So thou, being rich in 'Will,' add to thy 'Will' | ||
One will of mine, to make thy large will more. | ||
Let no unkind 'No' fair beseechers kill; | ||
Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.' | ||
CXXXVI | ||
If thy soul check thee that I come so near, | ||
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will', | ||
And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there; | ||
Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. | ||
5 | 'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love, | |
Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. | ||
In things of great receipt with ease we prove | ||
Among a number one is reckon'd none: | ||
Then in the number let me pass untold, | ||
10 | Though in thy store's account I one must be; | |
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold | ||
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee: | ||
Make but my name thy love, and love that still, | ||
And then thou lov'st me for my name is 'Will.' | ||
CXXXVII | ||
Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes, | ||
That they behold, and see not what they see? | ||
They know what beauty is, see where it lies, | ||
Yet what the best is take the worst to be. | ||
5 | If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks, | |
Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride, | ||
Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks, | ||
Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied? | ||
Why should my heart think that a several plot, | ||
10 | Which my heart knows the wide world's common place? | |
Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not, | ||
To put fair truth upon so foul a face? | ||
In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd, | ||
And to this false plague are they now transferr'd. | ||
CXXXVIII | ||
When my love swears that she is made of truth, | ||
I do believe her though I know she lies, | ||
That she might think me some untutor'd youth, | ||
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. | ||
5 | Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, | |
Although she knows my days are past the best, | ||
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue: | ||
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed: | ||
But wherefore says she not she is unjust? | ||
10 | And wherefore say not I that I am old? | |
O! love's best habit is in seeming trust, | ||
And age in love, loves not to have years told: | ||
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, | ||
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be. | ||
CXXXIX | ||
O! call not me to justify the wrong | ||
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart; | ||
Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue: | ||
Use power with power, and slay me not by art, | ||
5 | Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight, | |
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside: | ||
What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might | ||
Is more than my o'erpress'd defence can bide? | ||
Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows | ||
10 | Her pretty looks have been mine enemies; | |
And therefore from my face she turns my foes, | ||
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries: | ||
Yet do not so; but since I am near slain, | ||
Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain. | ||
CXL | ||
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press | ||
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain; | ||
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express | ||
The manner of my pity-wanting pain. | ||
5 | If I might teach thee wit, better it were, | |
Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;— | ||
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near, | ||
No news but health from their physicians know;— | ||
For, if I should despair, I should grow mad, | ||
10 | And in my madness might speak ill of thee; | |
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, | ||
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. | ||
That I may not be so, nor thou belied, | ||
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide. | ||
CXLI | ||
In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, | ||
For they in thee a thousand errors note; | ||
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise, | ||
Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote. | ||
5 | Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted; | |
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone, | ||
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited | ||
To any sensual feast with thee alone: | ||
But my five wits nor my five senses can | ||
10 | Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee, | |
Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man, | ||
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be: | ||
Only my plague thus far I count my gain, | ||
That she that makes me sin awards me pain. | ||
CXLII | ||
Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, | ||
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving: | ||
O! but with mine compare thou thine own state, | ||
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving; | ||
5 | Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine, | |
That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments | ||
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine, | ||
Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents. | ||
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those | ||
10 | Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee: | |
Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows, | ||
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be. | ||
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, | ||
By self-example mayst thou be denied! | ||
CXLIII | ||
Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch | ||
One of her feather'd creatures broke away, | ||
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch | ||
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay; | ||
5 | Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase, | |
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent | ||
To follow that which flies before her face, | ||
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent; | ||
So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee, | ||
10 | Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind; | |
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me, | ||
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind; | ||
So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,' | ||
If thou turn back and my loud crying still. | ||
CXLIV | ||
Two loves I have of comfort and despair, | ||
Which like two spirits do suggest me still: | ||
The better angel is a man right fair, | ||
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill. | ||
5 | To win me soon to hell, my female evil, | |
Tempteth my better angel from my side, | ||
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil, | ||
Wooing his purity with her foul pride. | ||
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend, | ||
10 | Suspect I may, yet not directly tell; | |
But being both from me, both to each friend, | ||
I guess one angel in another's hell: | ||
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, | ||
Till my bad angel fire my good one out. | ||
CXLV | ||
Those lips that Love's own hand did make, | ||
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate', | ||
To me that languish'd for her sake: | ||
But when she saw my woeful state, | ||
5 | Straight in her heart did mercy come, | |
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet | ||
Was us'd in giving gentle doom; | ||
And taught it thus anew to greet; | ||
'I hate' she alter'd with an end, | ||
10 | That followed it as gentle day, | |
Doth follow night, who like a fiend | ||
From heaven to hell is flown away. | ||
'I hate', from hate away she threw, | ||
And sav'd my life, saying 'not you'. | ||
CXLVI | ||
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, | ||
My sinful earth these rebel powers array, | ||
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, | ||
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? | ||
5 | Why so large cost, having so short a lease, | |
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? | ||
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, | ||
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end? | ||
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, | ||
10 | And let that pine to aggravate thy store; | |
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; | ||
Within be fed, without be rich no more: | ||
So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, | ||
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then. | ||
CXLVII | ||
My love is as a fever longing still, | ||
For that which longer nurseth the disease; | ||
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, | ||
The uncertain sickly appetite to please. | ||
5 | My reason, the physician to my love, | |
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, | ||
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve | ||
Desire is death, which physic did except. | ||
Past cure I am, now Reason is past care, | ||
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; | ||
10 | My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, | |
At random from the truth vainly express'd; | ||
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, | ||
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. | ||
CXLVIII | ||
O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head, | ||
Which have no correspondence with true sight; | ||
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, | ||
That censures falsely what they see aright? | ||
5 | If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, | |
What means the world to say it is not so? | ||
If it be not, then love doth well denote | ||
Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no, | ||
How can it? O! how can Love's eye be true, | ||
10 | That is so vexed with watching and with tears? | |
No marvel then, though I mistake my view; | ||
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears. | ||
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind, | ||
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find. | ||
CXLIX | ||
Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not, | ||
When I against myself with thee partake? | ||
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot | ||
Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake? | ||
5 | Who hateth thee that I do call my friend, | |
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon, | ||
Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend | ||
Revenge upon myself with present moan? | ||
What merit do I in my self respect, | ||
10 | That is so proud thy service to despise, | |
When all my best doth worship thy defect, | ||
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes? | ||
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind,; | ||
Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind. | ||
CL | ||
O! from what power hast thou this powerful might, | ||
With insufficiency my heart to sway? | ||
To make me give the lie to my true sight, | ||
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day? | ||
5 | Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, | |
That in the very refuse of thy deeds | ||
There is such strength and warrantise of skill, | ||
That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds? | ||
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more, | ||
10 | The more I hear and see just cause of hate? | |
O! though I love what others do abhor, | ||
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state: | ||
If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me, | ||
More worthy I to be belov'd of thee. | ||
CLI | ||
Love is too young to know what conscience is, | ||
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? | ||
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, | ||
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove: | ||
5 | For, thou betraying me, I do betray | |
My nobler part to my gross body's treason; | ||
My soul doth tell my body that he may | ||
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason, | ||
But rising at thy name doth point out thee, | ||
10 | As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride, | |
He is contented thy poor drudge to be, | ||
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side. | ||
No want of conscience hold it that I call | ||
Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall. | ||
CLII | ||
In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn, | ||
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing; | ||
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn, | ||
In vowing new hate after new love bearing: | ||
5 | But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee, | |
When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most; | ||
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee, | ||
And all my honest faith in thee is lost: | ||
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness, | ||
10 | Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy; | |
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness, | ||
Or made them swear against the thing they see; | ||
For I have sworn thee fair; more perjur'd I, | ||
To swear against the truth so foul a lie.! | ||
CLIII | ||
Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep: | ||
A maid of Dian's this advantage found, | ||
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep | ||
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground; | ||
5 | Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love, | |
A dateless lively heat, still to endure, | ||
And grew a seeting bath, which yet men prove | ||
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure. | ||
But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired, | ||
10 | The boy for trial needs would touch my breast; | |
I, sick withal, the help of bath desired, | ||
And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest, | ||
But found no cure, the bath for my help lies | ||
Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes. | ||
CLIV | ||
The little Love-god lying once asleep, | ||
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, | ||
Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep | ||
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand | ||
5 | The fairest votary took up that fire | |
Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd; | ||
And so the general of hot desire | ||
Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarm'd. | ||
This brand she quenched in a cool well by, | ||
10 | Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual, | |
Growing a bath and healthful remedy, | ||
For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall, | ||
Came there for cure and this by that I prove, | ||
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love. | ||
First published 1609
Robert Clark