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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:
But thou,
contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light'st flame
with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance
lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou
that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the
gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And,
tender churl, makest 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 beseige 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:
Then being ask'd 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 deserved thy beauty's
use,
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.
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
Calls back the lovely April of
her prime:
So thou through windows of thine age shall
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 thyself thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's
bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And being frank she lends
to those are free.
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 thyself alone,
Thou of thyself
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 tomb'd 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:
For never-resting time
leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap
check'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty
o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:
Then, were not summer's
distillation left,
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.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which
happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to
breed another thee,
Or ten times
happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times
thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times
refigured 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;
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,
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 out-going 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 lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
Or
else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
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,
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 consumest thyself in single life?
Ah! if thou
issueless shalt hap to die.
The world will wail thee, like a
makeless wife;
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
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 murderous shame commits.
X.
For
shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,
Who for thyself art
so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of
many,
But that thou none lovest is most evident;
For thou
art so possess'd with murderous hate
That 'gainst thyself 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!
Shall hate be
fairer lodged 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 growest
In one of thine, from that
which thou departest;
And that fresh blood which youngly thou
bestowest
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth
convertest.
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,
Harsh featureless
and rude, barrenly perish:
Look, whom she best endow'd she gave
the more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty
cherish:
She carved 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 silver'd o'er with
white;
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,
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 yourself! but,
love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here
live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your
sweet semblance to some other give.
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,
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 judgment pluck;
And yet methinks I have
astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues,
of dearths, or seasons' quality;
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,
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;
When I
perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and check'd 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
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.
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XVI.
But wherefore do not you a
mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, time?
And
fortify yourself in your decay
With means more blessed than my
barren rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And
many maiden gardens yet unset
With virtuous wish would bear
your living flowers,
Much liker than your painted
counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life
repair,
Which this, time's
pencil, or my pupil pen,
Neither in inward worth nor outward
fair,
Can make you live yourself 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.
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
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:
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
Nor lose possession of that
fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his
shade,
When in eternal lines to time
thou growest:
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-lived phoenix in her blood;
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,
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;
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,
Much
steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman
wert thou first created;
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
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,
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 than 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.
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
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 thy heart
when mine is slain;
Thou gavest me thine, not to give back
again.
XXIII.
As an unperfect actor on the stage
Who
with his fear is put besides his part,
Or some fierce thing
replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens
his own heart.
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'ercharged with burden of mine own
love's might.
O, let my books be then the eloquence
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 the painter's art.
For through
the painter must you see his skill,
To find where your true
image pictured 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:
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.
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,
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 beloved
Where
I may not remove nor be removed.
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:
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
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 repose for limbs with
travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work
my mind, when body's work's expired:
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
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 debarr'd the benefit of
rest?
When day's oppression is not eased by night,
But day
by night, and night by day, oppress'd?
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 them thou art
bright
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
strength
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,
Wishing me like to one more
rich in hope,
Featured 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 myself
almost despising,
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:
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,
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
restored and sorrows end.
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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.
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 removed that
hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth
live,
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 loved 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,
Compare
them with the bettering 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:
'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;
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
With all triumphant splendor 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?
'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;
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 grieved 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.
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--
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.
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,
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.
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
despised,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That
I in thy abundance am sufficed
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?
O, give thyself the thanks, if aught
in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
For who's so
dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thyself dost give
invention light?
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times
more in worth
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?
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 deservest alone.
O
absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove,
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.
Then if for my love thou my
love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But
yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest
By wilful taste of
what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle
thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet,
love knows, it is a greater grief
To bear love's 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 petty 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.
Gentle
thou art and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore
to be assailed;
And when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will
sourly leave her till she have prevailed?
Ay me! but yet thou
mightest my seat forbear,
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.
Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:
Thou
dost love her, because thou knowst 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,
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.
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
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.
No
matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth
removed 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,
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.
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
recured
By those swift messengers return'd from thee,
Who
even but now come back again, assured
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.
My heart doth plead that thou in him
dost lie--
A closet never pierced with crystal eyes--
But
the defendant doth that plea deny
And says in him thy fair
appearance lies.
To 'cide this title is impanneled
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,
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,
Thyself
away art resent 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!
But thou, to whom
my jewels trifles are,
Most worthy of 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,
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 advised
respects;
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
Within the knowledge of mine own
desert,
And this my hand against myself 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!'
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 loved not speed, being made from
thee:
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
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.
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 no motion
shall I know:
Then can no horse with my desire keep
pace;
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.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since,
seldom coming, in the 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,
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 lack'd, 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.
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;
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.
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,
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 fade, my 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.
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
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 lover's
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 sharpen'd in his former
might:
So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill
Thy
hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness,
To-morrow see
again, and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual
dullness.
Let this sad interim like the ocean be
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;
Else call it winter, which being full of care
Makes
summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, 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.
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
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 any thing, 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!
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
That you yourself may privilege 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 beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear
amiss
The second burden of a former child!
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
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether
we are mended, or whether 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.
Nativity,
once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being
crown'd,
Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And time
that gave doth now his gift confound.
time
doth transfix the flourish set on youth
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?
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 tenor of thy jealousy?
O, no! thy
love, though much, is not so great:
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.
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,
Beated and chopp'd with tann'd
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'er-worn;
When hours have drain'd
his blood and fill'd his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his
youthful morn
Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night,
And
all those beauties whereof now he's king
Are vanishing or
vanish'd out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his
spring;
For such a time
do I now fortify
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 defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried
age;
When sometime
lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass eternal slave to mortal
rage;
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,
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'er-sways their power,
How
with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no
stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold
out
Against the wreckful 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,
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,
And guilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And
maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection
wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway
disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly
doctor-like controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd
simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tired
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?
Why should false painting imitate his
cheek
And steal dead seeing 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,
Beggar'd
of blood to blush through lively veins?
For she hath no
excheckr 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 the bastard signs of fair were
born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
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,
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.
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,
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
solve is this, that thou dost common grow.
LXX.
That
thou art blamed 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.
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 pass'd by the ambush of young
days,
Either not assail'd or victor being charged;
Yet this
thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy evermore
enlarged:
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
Then 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:
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
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;
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,
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.
In
me thou seest 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
That on the ashes of his
youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must
expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This
thou perceivest, 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.
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,
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;
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
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?
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,
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;
The
vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
And of this book
this learning mayst thou taste.
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 can not
contain
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.
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,
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 another place.
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
From thy
behavior; 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!
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,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or
being wreck'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.
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,
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
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 devised
What
strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou truly fair wert truly
sympathized
In true plain words by thy true-telling friend;
And
their gross painting might be better used
Where cheeks need
blood; in thee it is abused.
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
The
barren tender of a poet's debt;
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,
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.
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,
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
compiled,
Reserve their character with golden quill
And
precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
I think good thoughts
whilst other write good words,
And like unletter'd 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,'
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?
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
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 lack'd 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.
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.
Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then not
knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking;
So
thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on
better judgment 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 disposed 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.
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;
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.
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
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 myself 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:
Ah, do not, when
my heart hath 'scoped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a
conquer'd woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To
linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not
leave me last,
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,
Compared 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 bodies'
force,
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill,
Some
in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
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,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments'
cost,
Of more delight than hawks or 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 wretched
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.
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,
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:
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
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,
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,
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!
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
Which for
their habitation chose out thee,
Where beauty's veil doth cover
every blot,
And all things turn to fair that eyes can see!
Take
heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
The hardest knife
ill-used 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 loved of more and
less;
Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort.
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,
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 every where!
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
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.
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,
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
In
my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
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;
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?
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,
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 dyed?
Both truth
and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein
dignified.
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?
Excuse not silence so; for't lies in thee
To make him
much outlive a gilded tomb,
And to be praised 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 merchandized whose
rich esteeming
The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
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
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!
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,
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 eyed,
Such seems
your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests
shook three summers' pride,
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,
Steal from his figure and no pace perceived;
So
your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion
and mine eye may be deceived:
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.
Kind is
my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous
excellence;
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One
thing expressing, leaves out difference.
'Fair, kind and true'
is all my argument,
'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 lived 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 rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely
knights,
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
Of this our time,
all you prefiguring;
And, for they look'd but with divining
eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we,
which now behold these present days,
Had 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 confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse
endured
And the sad augurs mock their own
presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured
And
peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of
this most balmy time
My
love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of
him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
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 figured to thee my true spirit?
What's
new to speak, what new to register,
That may express my love or
thy dear merit?
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
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 myself depart
As from my
soul, which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if
I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to
the time,
not with the time
exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never
believe, though in my nature reign'd
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 myself a motley to the view,
Gored
mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old
offences of affections new;
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 proved
thee my best of love.
Now all is done, have what shall have no
end:
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof,
to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am
confined.
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.
Thence comes it that
my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is
subdued
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
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?
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
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;
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 rudest or gentlest
sight,
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 makes mine eye 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,
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,
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.
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,
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:
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
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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever
loved.
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;
That I have frequent been with unknown minds
And given
to time
your own dear-purchased 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
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 appetites
more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge,
As, to
prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we
purge,
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 diseased ere that there was true
needing.
Thus policy in love, to anticipate
The ills that
were not, grew to faults assured
And brought to medicine a
healthful state
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be
cured:
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!
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
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 rebuked 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.
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 suffered
in your crime.
O, that our night of woe might have
remember'd
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.
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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:
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
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;
Or at the least, so long as brain
and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to
razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be
miss'd.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
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.
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,
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.
No,
it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling
pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto
the inviting time
our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretic,
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 prove
more short than waste or ruining?
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,
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 suborn'd 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 sickle, hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and
therein show'st
Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self
grow'st;
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!
She may detain, but not still keep, her
treasure:
Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd 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:
For since each hand hath
put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false
borrow'd face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But
is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress'
brows are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners
seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering
creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn, becoming of
their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look
so.
CXXVIII.
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,
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
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy
fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than
living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give
them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
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