markov_uuid 0.0.1 → 0.0.2

Sign up to get free protection for your applications and to get access to all the features.
@@ -0,0 +1,3001 @@
1
+  From fairest creatures we desire increase,
2
+ That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
3
+ But as the riper should by time decease,
4
+ His tender heir might bear his memory:
5
+ But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
6
+ Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
7
+ Making a famine where abundance lies,
8
+ Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
9
+ Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
10
+ And only herald to the gaudy spring,
11
+ Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
12
+ And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:
13
+ Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
14
+ To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
15
+
16
+
17
+ 2
18
+ When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
19
+ And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
20
+ Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
21
+ Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:
22
+ Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
23
+ Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
24
+ To say within thine own deep sunken eyes,
25
+ Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
26
+ How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
27
+ If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
28
+ Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse'
29
+ Proving his beauty by succession thine.
30
+ This were to be new made when thou art old,
31
+ And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.
32
+
33
+
34
+ 3
35
+ Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
36
+ Now is the time that face should form another,
37
+ Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
38
+ Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
39
+ For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
40
+ Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
41
+ Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,
42
+ Of his self-love to stop posterity?
43
+ Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
44
+ Calls back the lovely April of her prime,
45
+ So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
46
+ Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
47
+ But if thou live remembered not to be,
48
+ Die single and thine image dies with thee.
49
+
50
+
51
+ 4
52
+ Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,
53
+ Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
54
+ Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
55
+ And being frank she lends to those are free:
56
+ Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,
57
+ The bounteous largess given thee to give?
58
+ Profitless usurer why dost thou use
59
+ So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
60
+ For having traffic with thy self alone,
61
+ Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,
62
+ Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
63
+ What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
64
+ Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
65
+ Which used lives th' executor to be.
66
+
67
+
68
+ 5
69
+ Those hours that with gentle work did frame
70
+ The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
71
+ Will play the tyrants to the very same,
72
+ And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
73
+ For never-resting time leads summer on
74
+ To hideous winter and confounds him there,
75
+ Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
76
+ Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:
77
+ Then were not summer's distillation left
78
+ A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
79
+ Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
80
+ Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
81
+ But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,
82
+ Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.
83
+
84
+
85
+ 6
86
+ Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,
87
+ In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:
88
+ Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,
89
+ With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed:
90
+ That use is not forbidden usury,
91
+ Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
92
+ That's for thy self to breed another thee,
93
+ Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
94
+ Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
95
+ If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
96
+ Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
97
+ Leaving thee living in posterity?
98
+ Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair,
99
+ To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
100
+
101
+
102
+ 7
103
+ Lo in the orient when the gracious light
104
+ Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
105
+ Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
106
+ Serving with looks his sacred majesty,
107
+ And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,
108
+ Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
109
+ Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
110
+ Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
111
+ But when from highmost pitch with weary car,
112
+ Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,
113
+ The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are
114
+ From his low tract and look another way:
115
+ So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:
116
+ Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.
117
+
118
+
119
+ 8
120
+ Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
121
+ Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
122
+ Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
123
+ Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
124
+ If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
125
+ By unions married do offend thine ear,
126
+ They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
127
+ In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:
128
+ Mark how one string sweet husband to another,
129
+ Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
130
+ Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
131
+ Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
132
+ Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
133
+ Sings this to thee, 'Thou single wilt prove none'.
134
+
135
+
136
+ 9
137
+ Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
138
+ That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
139
+ Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
140
+ The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,
141
+ The world will be thy widow and still weep,
142
+ That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
143
+ When every private widow well may keep,
144
+ By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
145
+ Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
146
+ Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
147
+ But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
148
+ And kept unused the user so destroys it:
149
+ No love toward others in that bosom sits
150
+ That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
151
+
152
+
153
+ 10
154
+ For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any
155
+ Who for thy self art so unprovident.
156
+ Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
157
+ But that thou none lov'st is most evident:
158
+ For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate,
159
+ That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,
160
+ Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
161
+ Which to repair should be thy chief desire:
162
+ O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,
163
+ Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
164
+ Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,
165
+ Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,
166
+ Make thee another self for love of me,
167
+ That beauty still may live in thine or thee.
168
+
169
+
170
+ 11
171
+ As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st,
172
+ In one of thine, from that which thou departest,
173
+ And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,
174
+ Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,
175
+ Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,
176
+ Without this folly, age, and cold decay,
177
+ If all were minded so, the times should cease,
178
+ And threescore year would make the world away:
179
+ Let those whom nature hath not made for store,
180
+ Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:
181
+ Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;
182
+ Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
183
+ She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,
184
+ Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
185
+
186
+
187
+ 12
188
+ When I do count the clock that tells the time,
189
+ And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
190
+ When I behold the violet past prime,
191
+ And sable curls all silvered o'er with white:
192
+ When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
193
+ Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
194
+ And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
195
+ Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
196
+ Then of thy beauty do I question make
197
+ That thou among the wastes of time must go,
198
+ Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
199
+ And die as fast as they see others grow,
200
+ And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
201
+ Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.
202
+
203
+
204
+ 13
205
+ O that you were your self, but love you are
206
+ No longer yours, than you your self here live,
207
+ Against this coming end you should prepare,
208
+ And your sweet semblance to some other give.
209
+ So should that beauty which you hold in lease
210
+ Find no determination, then you were
211
+ Your self again after your self's decease,
212
+ When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
213
+ Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
214
+ Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
215
+ Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
216
+ And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
217
+ O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,
218
+ You had a father, let your son say so.
219
+
220
+
221
+ 14
222
+ Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,
223
+ And yet methinks I have astronomy,
224
+ But not to tell of good, or evil luck,
225
+ Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality,
226
+ Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;
227
+ Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
228
+ Or say with princes if it shall go well
229
+ By oft predict that I in heaven find.
230
+ But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
231
+ And constant stars in them I read such art
232
+ As truth and beauty shall together thrive
233
+ If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:
234
+ Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
235
+ Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
236
+
237
+
238
+ 15
239
+ When I consider every thing that grows
240
+ Holds in perfection but a little moment.
241
+ That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
242
+ Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.
243
+ When I perceive that men as plants increase,
244
+ Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:
245
+ Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
246
+ And wear their brave state out of memory.
247
+ Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,
248
+ Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
249
+ Where wasteful time debateth with decay
250
+ To change your day of youth to sullied night,
251
+ And all in war with Time for love of you,
252
+ As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
253
+
254
+
255
+ 16
256
+ But wherefore do not you a mightier way
257
+ Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?
258
+ And fortify your self in your decay
259
+ With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
260
+ Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
261
+ And many maiden gardens yet unset,
262
+ With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
263
+ Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
264
+ So should the lines of life that life repair
265
+ Which this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen
266
+ Neither in inward worth nor outward fair
267
+ Can make you live your self in eyes of men.
268
+ To give away your self, keeps your self still,
269
+ And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.
270
+
271
+
272
+ 17
273
+ Who will believe my verse in time to come
274
+ If it were filled with your most high deserts?
275
+ Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
276
+ Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:
277
+ If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
278
+ And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
279
+ The age to come would say this poet lies,
280
+ Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.
281
+ So should my papers (yellowed with their age)
282
+ Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
283
+ And your true rights be termed a poet's rage,
284
+ And stretched metre of an antique song.
285
+ But were some child of yours alive that time,
286
+ You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.
287
+
288
+
289
+ 18
290
+ Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
291
+ Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
292
+ Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
293
+ And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
294
+ Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
295
+ And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
296
+ And every fair from fair sometime declines,
297
+ By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
298
+ But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
299
+ Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
300
+ Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
301
+ When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
302
+ So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
303
+ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
304
+
305
+
306
+ 19
307
+ Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,
308
+ And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,
309
+ Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
310
+ And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,
311
+ Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,
312
+ And do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time
313
+ To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
314
+ But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
315
+ O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
316
+ Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,
317
+ Him in thy course untainted do allow,
318
+ For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
319
+ Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
320
+ My love shall in my verse ever live young.
321
+
322
+
323
+ 20
324
+ A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
325
+ Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,
326
+ A woman's gentle heart but not acquainted
327
+ With shifting change as is false women's fashion,
328
+ An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:
329
+ Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,
330
+ A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
331
+ Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
332
+ And for a woman wert thou first created,
333
+ Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
334
+ And by addition me of thee defeated,
335
+ By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
336
+ But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,
337
+ Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.
338
+
339
+
340
+ 21
341
+ So is it not with me as with that muse,
342
+ Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
343
+ Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,
344
+ And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
345
+ Making a couplement of proud compare
346
+ With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems:
347
+ With April's first-born flowers and all things rare,
348
+ That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
349
+ O let me true in love but truly write,
350
+ And then believe me, my love is as fair,
351
+ As any mother's child, though not so bright
352
+ As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:
353
+ Let them say more that like of hearsay well,
354
+ I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
355
+
356
+
357
+ 22
358
+ My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
359
+ So long as youth and thou are of one date,
360
+ But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
361
+ Then look I death my days should expiate.
362
+ For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
363
+ Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
364
+ Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,
365
+ How can I then be elder than thou art?
366
+ O therefore love be of thyself so wary,
367
+ As I not for my self, but for thee will,
368
+ Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary
369
+ As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
370
+ Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
371
+ Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.
372
+
373
+
374
+ 23
375
+ As an unperfect actor on the stage,
376
+ Who with his fear is put beside his part,
377
+ Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
378
+ Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
379
+ So I for fear of trust, forget to say,
380
+ The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
381
+ And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
382
+ O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might:
383
+ O let my looks be then the eloquence,
384
+ And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
385
+ Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
386
+ More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.
387
+ O learn to read what silent love hath writ,
388
+ To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
389
+
390
+
391
+ 24
392
+ Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,
393
+ Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,
394
+ My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
395
+ And perspective it is best painter's art.
396
+ For through the painter must you see his skill,
397
+ To find where your true image pictured lies,
398
+ Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
399
+ That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:
400
+ Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,
401
+ Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
402
+ Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
403
+ Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
404
+ Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
405
+ They draw but what they see, know not the heart.
406
+
407
+
408
+ 25
409
+ Let those who are in favour with their stars,
410
+ Of public honour and proud titles boast,
411
+ Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars
412
+ Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;
413
+ Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread,
414
+ But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
415
+ And in themselves their pride lies buried,
416
+ For at a frown they in their glory die.
417
+ The painful warrior famoused for fight,
418
+ After a thousand victories once foiled,
419
+ Is from the book of honour razed quite,
420
+ And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
421
+ Then happy I that love and am beloved
422
+ Where I may not remove nor be removed.
423
+
424
+
425
+ 26
426
+ Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
427
+ Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;
428
+ To thee I send this written embassage
429
+ To witness duty, not to show my wit.
430
+ Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
431
+ May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;
432
+ But that I hope some good conceit of thine
433
+ In thy soul's thought (all naked) will bestow it:
434
+ Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
435
+ Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
436
+ And puts apparel on my tattered loving,
437
+ To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,
438
+ Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,
439
+ Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.
440
+
441
+
442
+ 27
443
+ Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
444
+ The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,
445
+ But then begins a journey in my head
446
+ To work my mind, when body's work's expired.
447
+ For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)
448
+ Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
449
+ And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
450
+ Looking on darkness which the blind do see.
451
+ Save that my soul's imaginary sight
452
+ Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
453
+ Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)
454
+ Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
455
+ Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,
456
+ For thee, and for my self, no quiet find.
457
+
458
+
459
+ 28
460
+ How can I then return in happy plight
461
+ That am debarred the benefit of rest?
462
+ When day's oppression is not eased by night,
463
+ But day by night and night by day oppressed.
464
+ And each (though enemies to either's reign)
465
+ Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
466
+ The one by toil, the other to complain
467
+ How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
468
+ I tell the day to please him thou art bright,
469
+ And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
470
+ So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,
471
+ When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.
472
+ But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
473
+ And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger
474
+
475
+
476
+ 29
477
+ When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
478
+ I all alone beweep my outcast state,
479
+ And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
480
+ And look upon my self and curse my fate,
481
+ Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
482
+ Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
483
+ Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
484
+ With what I most enjoy contented least,
485
+ Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
486
+ Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
487
+ (Like to the lark at break of day arising
488
+ From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
489
+ For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
490
+ That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
491
+
492
+
493
+ 30
494
+ When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
495
+ I summon up remembrance of things past,
496
+ I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
497
+ And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
498
+ Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)
499
+ For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
500
+ And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
501
+ And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.
502
+ Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
503
+ And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
504
+ The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
505
+ Which I new pay as if not paid before.
506
+ But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)
507
+ All losses are restored, and sorrows end.
508
+
509
+
510
+ 31
511
+ Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
512
+ Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
513
+ And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,
514
+ And all those friends which I thought buried.
515
+ How many a holy and obsequious tear
516
+ Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,
517
+ As interest of the dead, which now appear,
518
+ But things removed that hidden in thee lie.
519
+ Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
520
+ Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
521
+ Who all their parts of me to thee did give,
522
+ That due of many, now is thine alone.
523
+ Their images I loved, I view in thee,
524
+ And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.
525
+
526
+
527
+ 32
528
+ If thou survive my well-contented day,
529
+ When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover
530
+ And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
531
+ These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:
532
+ Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,
533
+ And though they be outstripped by every pen,
534
+ Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
535
+ Exceeded by the height of happier men.
536
+ O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,
537
+ 'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,
538
+ A dearer birth than this his love had brought
539
+ To march in ranks of better equipage:
540
+ But since he died and poets better prove,
541
+ Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.
542
+
543
+
544
+ 33
545
+ Full many a glorious morning have I seen,
546
+ Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
547
+ Kissing with golden face the meadows green;
548
+ Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:
549
+ Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,
550
+ With ugly rack on his celestial face,
551
+ And from the forlorn world his visage hide
552
+ Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
553
+ Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
554
+ With all triumphant splendour on my brow,
555
+ But out alack, he was but one hour mine,
556
+ The region cloud hath masked him from me now.
557
+ Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,
558
+ Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.
559
+
560
+
561
+ 34
562
+ Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
563
+ And make me travel forth without my cloak,
564
+ To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
565
+ Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?
566
+ 'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
567
+ To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
568
+ For no man well of such a salve can speak,
569
+ That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
570
+ Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief,
571
+ Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,
572
+ Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
573
+ To him that bears the strong offence's cross.
574
+ Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
575
+ And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.
576
+
577
+
578
+ 35
579
+ No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,
580
+ Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,
581
+ Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
582
+ And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
583
+ All men make faults, and even I in this,
584
+ Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
585
+ My self corrupting salving thy amiss,
586
+ Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:
587
+ For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,
588
+ Thy adverse party is thy advocate,
589
+ And 'gainst my self a lawful plea commence:
590
+ Such civil war is in my love and hate,
591
+ That I an accessary needs must be,
592
+ To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
593
+
594
+
595
+ 36
596
+ Let me confess that we two must be twain,
597
+ Although our undivided loves are one:
598
+ So shall those blots that do with me remain,
599
+ Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
600
+ In our two loves there is but one respect,
601
+ Though in our lives a separable spite,
602
+ Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
603
+ Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
604
+ I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
605
+ Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
606
+ Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
607
+ Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
608
+ But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
609
+ As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
610
+
611
+
612
+ 37
613
+ As a decrepit father takes delight,
614
+ To see his active child do deeds of youth,
615
+ So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite
616
+ Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
617
+ For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
618
+ Or any of these all, or all, or more
619
+ Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
620
+ I make my love engrafted to this store:
621
+ So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
622
+ Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,
623
+ That I in thy abundance am sufficed,
624
+ And by a part of all thy glory live:
625
+ Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,
626
+ This wish I have, then ten times happy me.
627
+
628
+
629
+ 38
630
+ How can my muse want subject to invent
631
+ While thou dost breathe that pour'st into my verse,
632
+ Thine own sweet argument, too excellent,
633
+ For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
634
+ O give thy self the thanks if aught in me,
635
+ Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,
636
+ For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
637
+ When thou thy self dost give invention light?
638
+ Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
639
+ Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,
640
+ And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
641
+ Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
642
+ If my slight muse do please these curious days,
643
+ The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
644
+
645
+
646
+ 39
647
+ O how thy worth with manners may I sing,
648
+ When thou art all the better part of me?
649
+ What can mine own praise to mine own self bring:
650
+ And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?
651
+ Even for this, let us divided live,
652
+ And our dear love lose name of single one,
653
+ That by this separation I may give:
654
+ That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone:
655
+ O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,
656
+ Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,
657
+ To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
658
+ Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.
659
+ And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
660
+ By praising him here who doth hence remain.
661
+
662
+
663
+ 40
664
+ Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,
665
+ What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
666
+ No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,
667
+ All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:
668
+ Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,
669
+ I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,
670
+ But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest
671
+ By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.
672
+ I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief
673
+ Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
674
+ And yet love knows it is a greater grief
675
+ To bear greater wrong, than hate's known injury.
676
+ Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
677
+ Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.
678
+
679
+
680
+ 41
681
+ Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
682
+ When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
683
+ Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,
684
+ For still temptation follows where thou art.
685
+ Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
686
+ Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.
687
+ And when a woman woos, what woman's son,
688
+ Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?
689
+ Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
690
+ And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,
691
+ Who lead thee in their riot even there
692
+ Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:
693
+ Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
694
+ Thine by thy beauty being false to me.
695
+
696
+
697
+ 42
698
+ That thou hast her it is not all my grief,
699
+ And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,
700
+ That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
701
+ A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
702
+ Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,
703
+ Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her,
704
+ And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
705
+ Suff'ring my friend for my sake to approve her.
706
+ If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,
707
+ And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,
708
+ Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
709
+ And both for my sake lay on me this cross,
710
+ But here's the joy, my friend and I are one,
711
+ Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.
712
+
713
+
714
+ 43
715
+ When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,
716
+ For all the day they view things unrespected,
717
+ But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
718
+ And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
719
+ Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright
720
+ How would thy shadow's form, form happy show,
721
+ To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
722
+ When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
723
+ How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,
724
+ By looking on thee in the living day,
725
+ When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,
726
+ Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
727
+ All days are nights to see till I see thee,
728
+ And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
729
+
730
+
731
+ 44
732
+ If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
733
+ Injurious distance should not stop my way,
734
+ For then despite of space I would be brought,
735
+ From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,
736
+ No matter then although my foot did stand
737
+ Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,
738
+ For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
739
+ As soon as think the place where he would be.
740
+ But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought
741
+ To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
742
+ But that so much of earth and water wrought,
743
+ I must attend, time's leisure with my moan.
744
+ Receiving nought by elements so slow,
745
+ But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.
746
+
747
+
748
+ 45
749
+ The other two, slight air, and purging fire,
750
+ Are both with thee, wherever I abide,
751
+ The first my thought, the other my desire,
752
+ These present-absent with swift motion slide.
753
+ For when these quicker elements are gone
754
+ In tender embassy of love to thee,
755
+ My life being made of four, with two alone,
756
+ Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.
757
+ Until life's composition be recured,
758
+ By those swift messengers returned from thee,
759
+ Who even but now come back again assured,
760
+ Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.
761
+ This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,
762
+ I send them back again and straight grow sad.
763
+
764
+
765
+ 46
766
+ Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
767
+ How to divide the conquest of thy sight,
768
+ Mine eye, my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
769
+ My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,
770
+ My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
771
+ (A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)
772
+ But the defendant doth that plea deny,
773
+ And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
774
+ To side this title is impanelled
775
+ A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,
776
+ And by their verdict is determined
777
+ The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part.
778
+ As thus, mine eye's due is thy outward part,
779
+ And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.
780
+
781
+
782
+ 47
783
+ Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
784
+ And each doth good turns now unto the other,
785
+ When that mine eye is famished for a look,
786
+ Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;
787
+ With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,
788
+ And to the painted banquet bids my heart:
789
+ Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
790
+ And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.
791
+ So either by thy picture or my love,
792
+ Thy self away, art present still with me,
793
+ For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
794
+ And I am still with them, and they with thee.
795
+ Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
796
+ Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.
797
+
798
+
799
+ 48
800
+ How careful was I when I took my way,
801
+ Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
802
+ That to my use it might unused stay
803
+ From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
804
+ But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
805
+ Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
806
+ Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,
807
+ Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
808
+ Thee have I not locked up in any chest,
809
+ Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,
810
+ Within the gentle closure of my breast,
811
+ From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,
812
+ And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,
813
+ For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.
814
+
815
+
816
+ 49
817
+ Against that time (if ever that time come)
818
+ When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
819
+ When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
820
+ Called to that audit by advised respects,
821
+ Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
822
+ And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,
823
+ When love converted from the thing it was
824
+ Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
825
+ Against that time do I ensconce me here
826
+ Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
827
+ And this my hand, against my self uprear,
828
+ To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,
829
+ To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,
830
+ Since why to love, I can allege no cause.
831
+
832
+
833
+ 50
834
+ How heavy do I journey on the way,
835
+ When what I seek (my weary travel's end)
836
+ Doth teach that case and that repose to say
837
+ 'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.'
838
+ The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
839
+ Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
840
+ As if by some instinct the wretch did know
841
+ His rider loved not speed being made from thee:
842
+ The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
843
+ That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
844
+ Which heavily he answers with a groan,
845
+ More sharp to me than spurring to his side,
846
+ For that same groan doth put this in my mind,
847
+ My grief lies onward and my joy behind.
848
+
849
+
850
+ 51
851
+ Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,
852
+ Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,
853
+ From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?
854
+ Till I return of posting is no need.
855
+ O what excuse will my poor beast then find,
856
+ When swift extremity can seem but slow?
857
+ Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,
858
+ In winged speed no motion shall I know,
859
+ Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,
860
+ Therefore desire (of perfect'st love being made)
861
+ Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,
862
+ But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,
863
+ Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,
864
+ Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.
865
+
866
+
867
+ 52
868
+ So am I as the rich whose blessed key,
869
+ Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
870
+ The which he will not every hour survey,
871
+ For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
872
+ Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
873
+ Since seldom coming in that long year set,
874
+ Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
875
+ Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
876
+ So is the time that keeps you as my chest
877
+ Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
878
+ To make some special instant special-blest,
879
+ By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.
880
+ Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
881
+ Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.
882
+
883
+
884
+ 53
885
+ What is your substance, whereof are you made,
886
+ That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
887
+ Since every one, hath every one, one shade,
888
+ And you but one, can every shadow lend:
889
+ Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,
890
+ Is poorly imitated after you,
891
+ On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
892
+ And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
893
+ Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,
894
+ The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
895
+ The other as your bounty doth appear,
896
+ And you in every blessed shape we know.
897
+ In all external grace you have some part,
898
+ But you like none, none you for constant heart.
899
+
900
+
901
+ 54
902
+ O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
903
+ By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
904
+ The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
905
+ For that sweet odour, which doth in it live:
906
+ The canker blooms have full as deep a dye,
907
+ As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
908
+ Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
909
+ When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
910
+ But for their virtue only is their show,
911
+ They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,
912
+ Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,
913
+ Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:
914
+ And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
915
+ When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.
916
+
917
+
918
+ 55
919
+ Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
920
+ Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
921
+ But you shall shine more bright in these contents
922
+ Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
923
+ When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
924
+ And broils root out the work of masonry,
925
+ Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn:
926
+ The living record of your memory.
927
+ 'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity
928
+ Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,
929
+ Even in the eyes of all posterity
930
+ That wear this world out to the ending doom.
931
+ So till the judgment that your self arise,
932
+ You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
933
+
934
+
935
+ 56
936
+ Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said
937
+ Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
938
+ Which but to-day by feeding is allayed,
939
+ To-morrow sharpened in his former might.
940
+ So love be thou, although to-day thou fill
941
+ Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,
942
+ To-morrow see again, and do not kill
943
+ The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness:
944
+ Let this sad interim like the ocean be
945
+ Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,
946
+ Come daily to the banks, that when they see:
947
+ Return of love, more blest may be the view.
948
+ Or call it winter, which being full of care,
949
+ Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.
950
+
951
+
952
+ 57
953
+ Being your slave what should I do but tend,
954
+ Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
955
+ I have no precious time at all to spend;
956
+ Nor services to do till you require.
957
+ Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
958
+ Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,
959
+ Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
960
+ When you have bid your servant once adieu.
961
+ Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,
962
+ Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
963
+ But like a sad slave stay and think of nought
964
+ Save where you are, how happy you make those.
965
+ So true a fool is love, that in your will,
966
+ (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.
967
+
968
+
969
+ 58
970
+ That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
971
+ I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
972
+ Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,
973
+ Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.
974
+ O let me suffer (being at your beck)
975
+ Th' imprisoned absence of your liberty,
976
+ And patience tame to sufferance bide each check,
977
+ Without accusing you of injury.
978
+ Be where you list, your charter is so strong,
979
+ That you your self may privilage your time
980
+ To what you will, to you it doth belong,
981
+ Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.
982
+ I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
983
+ Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.
984
+
985
+
986
+ 59
987
+ If there be nothing new, but that which is,
988
+ Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
989
+ Which labouring for invention bear amis
990
+ The second burthen of a former child!
991
+ O that record could with a backward look,
992
+ Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
993
+ Show me your image in some antique book,
994
+ Since mind at first in character was done.
995
+ That I might see what the old world could say,
996
+ To this composed wonder of your frame,
997
+ Whether we are mended, or whether better they,
998
+ Or whether revolution be the same.
999
+ O sure I am the wits of former days,
1000
+ To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
1001
+
1002
+
1003
+ 60
1004
+ Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
1005
+ So do our minutes hasten to their end,
1006
+ Each changing place with that which goes before,
1007
+ In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
1008
+ Nativity once in the main of light,
1009
+ Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,
1010
+ Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
1011
+ And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
1012
+ Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
1013
+ And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
1014
+ Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
1015
+ And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
1016
+ And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
1017
+ Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
1018
+
1019
+
1020
+ 61
1021
+ Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
1022
+ My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
1023
+ Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
1024
+ While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
1025
+ Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
1026
+ So far from home into my deeds to pry,
1027
+ To find out shames and idle hours in me,
1028
+ The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?
1029
+ O no, thy love though much, is not so great,
1030
+ It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
1031
+ Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
1032
+ To play the watchman ever for thy sake.
1033
+ For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
1034
+ From me far off, with others all too near.
1035
+
1036
+
1037
+ 62
1038
+ Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,
1039
+ And all my soul, and all my every part;
1040
+ And for this sin there is no remedy,
1041
+ It is so grounded inward in my heart.
1042
+ Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
1043
+ No shape so true, no truth of such account,
1044
+ And for my self mine own worth do define,
1045
+ As I all other in all worths surmount.
1046
+ But when my glass shows me my self indeed
1047
+ beated and chopt with tanned antiquity,
1048
+ Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:
1049
+ Self, so self-loving were iniquity.
1050
+ 'Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,
1051
+ Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
1052
+
1053
+
1054
+ 63
1055
+ Against my love shall be as I am now
1056
+ With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn,
1057
+ When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
1058
+ With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn
1059
+ Hath travelled on to age's steepy night,
1060
+ And all those beauties whereof now he's king
1061
+ Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
1062
+ Stealing away the treasure of his spring:
1063
+ For such a time do I now fortify
1064
+ Against confounding age's cruel knife,
1065
+ That he shall never cut from memory
1066
+ My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life.
1067
+ His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
1068
+ And they shall live, and he in them still green.
1069
+
1070
+
1071
+ 64
1072
+ When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
1073
+ The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,
1074
+ When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,
1075
+ And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.
1076
+ When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
1077
+ Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
1078
+ And the firm soil win of the watery main,
1079
+ Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.
1080
+ When I have seen such interchange of State,
1081
+ Or state it self confounded, to decay,
1082
+ Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
1083
+ That Time will come and take my love away.
1084
+ This thought is as a death which cannot choose
1085
+ But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.
1086
+
1087
+
1088
+ 65
1089
+ Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
1090
+ But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
1091
+ How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
1092
+ Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
1093
+ O how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
1094
+ Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,
1095
+ When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
1096
+ Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?
1097
+ O fearful meditation, where alack,
1098
+ Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
1099
+ Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
1100
+ Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
1101
+ O none, unless this miracle have might,
1102
+ That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
1103
+
1104
+
1105
+ 66
1106
+ Tired with all these for restful death I cry,
1107
+ As to behold desert a beggar born,
1108
+ And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
1109
+ And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
1110
+ And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
1111
+ And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
1112
+ And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
1113
+ And strength by limping sway disabled
1114
+ And art made tongue-tied by authority,
1115
+ And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
1116
+ And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
1117
+ And captive good attending captain ill.
1118
+ Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
1119
+ Save that to die, I leave my love alone.
1120
+
1121
+
1122
+ 67
1123
+ Ah wherefore with infection should he live,
1124
+ And with his presence grace impiety,
1125
+ That sin by him advantage should achieve,
1126
+ And lace it self with his society?
1127
+ Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
1128
+ And steal dead seeming of his living hue?
1129
+ Why should poor beauty indirectly seek,
1130
+ Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
1131
+ Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is,
1132
+ Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins,
1133
+ For she hath no exchequer now but his,
1134
+ And proud of many, lives upon his gains?
1135
+ O him she stores, to show what wealth she had,
1136
+ In days long since, before these last so bad.
1137
+
1138
+
1139
+ 68
1140
+ Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
1141
+ When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
1142
+ Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
1143
+ Or durst inhabit on a living brow:
1144
+ Before the golden tresses of the dead,
1145
+ The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
1146
+ To live a second life on second head,
1147
+ Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:
1148
+ In him those holy antique hours are seen,
1149
+ Without all ornament, it self and true,
1150
+ Making no summer of another's green,
1151
+ Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,
1152
+ And him as for a map doth Nature store,
1153
+ To show false Art what beauty was of yore.
1154
+
1155
+
1156
+ 69
1157
+ Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view,
1158
+ Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:
1159
+ All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,
1160
+ Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
1161
+ Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,
1162
+ But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,
1163
+ In other accents do this praise confound
1164
+ By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
1165
+ They look into the beauty of thy mind,
1166
+ And that in guess they measure by thy deeds,
1167
+ Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)
1168
+ To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
1169
+ But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
1170
+ The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.
1171
+
1172
+
1173
+ 70
1174
+ That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
1175
+ For slander's mark was ever yet the fair,
1176
+ The ornament of beauty is suspect,
1177
+ A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
1178
+ So thou be good, slander doth but approve,
1179
+ Thy worth the greater being wooed of time,
1180
+ For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
1181
+ And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
1182
+ Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,
1183
+ Either not assailed, or victor being charged,
1184
+ Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
1185
+ To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,
1186
+ If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,
1187
+ Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.
1188
+
1189
+
1190
+ 71
1191
+ No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
1192
+ Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
1193
+ Give warning to the world that I am fled
1194
+ From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
1195
+ Nay if you read this line, remember not,
1196
+ The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
1197
+ That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
1198
+ If thinking on me then should make you woe.
1199
+ O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
1200
+ When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,
1201
+ Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
1202
+ But let your love even with my life decay.
1203
+ Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
1204
+ And mock you with me after I am gone.
1205
+
1206
+
1207
+ 72
1208
+ O lest the world should task you to recite,
1209
+ What merit lived in me that you should love
1210
+ After my death (dear love) forget me quite,
1211
+ For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
1212
+ Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
1213
+ To do more for me than mine own desert,
1214
+ And hang more praise upon deceased I,
1215
+ Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
1216
+ O lest your true love may seem false in this,
1217
+ That you for love speak well of me untrue,
1218
+ My name be buried where my body is,
1219
+ And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.
1220
+ For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
1221
+ And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
1222
+
1223
+
1224
+ 73
1225
+ That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
1226
+ When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
1227
+ Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
1228
+ Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
1229
+ In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
1230
+ As after sunset fadeth in the west,
1231
+ Which by and by black night doth take away,
1232
+ Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
1233
+ In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
1234
+ That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
1235
+ As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
1236
+ Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
1237
+ This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
1238
+ To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
1239
+
1240
+
1241
+ 74
1242
+ But be contented when that fell arrest,
1243
+ Without all bail shall carry me away,
1244
+ My life hath in this line some interest,
1245
+ Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
1246
+ When thou reviewest this, thou dost review,
1247
+ The very part was consecrate to thee,
1248
+ The earth can have but earth, which is his due,
1249
+ My spirit is thine the better part of me,
1250
+ So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
1251
+ The prey of worms, my body being dead,
1252
+ The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
1253
+ Too base of thee to be remembered,
1254
+ The worth of that, is that which it contains,
1255
+ And that is this, and this with thee remains.
1256
+
1257
+
1258
+ 75
1259
+ So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
1260
+ Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
1261
+ And for the peace of you I hold such strife
1262
+ As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
1263
+ Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
1264
+ Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
1265
+ Now counting best to be with you alone,
1266
+ Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,
1267
+ Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
1268
+ And by and by clean starved for a look,
1269
+ Possessing or pursuing no delight
1270
+ Save what is had, or must from you be took.
1271
+ Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
1272
+ Or gluttoning on all, or all away.
1273
+
1274
+
1275
+ 76
1276
+ Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
1277
+ So far from variation or quick change?
1278
+ Why with the time do I not glance aside
1279
+ To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
1280
+ Why write I still all one, ever the same,
1281
+ And keep invention in a noted weed,
1282
+ That every word doth almost tell my name,
1283
+ Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
1284
+ O know sweet love I always write of you,
1285
+ And you and love are still my argument:
1286
+ So all my best is dressing old words new,
1287
+ Spending again what is already spent:
1288
+ For as the sun is daily new and old,
1289
+ So is my love still telling what is told.
1290
+
1291
+
1292
+ 77
1293
+ Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
1294
+ Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,
1295
+ These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
1296
+ And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.
1297
+ The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,
1298
+ Of mouthed graves will give thee memory,
1299
+ Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know,
1300
+ Time's thievish progress to eternity.
1301
+ Look what thy memory cannot contain,
1302
+ Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
1303
+ Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
1304
+ To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
1305
+ These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
1306
+ Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.
1307
+
1308
+
1309
+ 78
1310
+ So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,
1311
+ And found such fair assistance in my verse,
1312
+ As every alien pen hath got my use,
1313
+ And under thee their poesy disperse.
1314
+ Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,
1315
+ And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
1316
+ Have added feathers to the learned's wing,
1317
+ And given grace a double majesty.
1318
+ Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
1319
+ Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,
1320
+ In others' works thou dost but mend the style,
1321
+ And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.
1322
+ But thou art all my art, and dost advance
1323
+ As high as learning, my rude ignorance.
1324
+
1325
+
1326
+ 79
1327
+ Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
1328
+ My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
1329
+ But now my gracious numbers are decayed,
1330
+ And my sick muse doth give an other place.
1331
+ I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument
1332
+ Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
1333
+ Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
1334
+ He robs thee of, and pays it thee again,
1335
+ He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word,
1336
+ From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give
1337
+ And found it in thy cheek: he can afford
1338
+ No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.
1339
+ Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
1340
+ Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.
1341
+
1342
+
1343
+ 80
1344
+ O how I faint when I of you do write,
1345
+ Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
1346
+ And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
1347
+ To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
1348
+ But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)
1349
+ The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
1350
+ My saucy bark (inferior far to his)
1351
+ On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
1352
+ Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
1353
+ Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,
1354
+ Or (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat,
1355
+ He of tall building, and of goodly pride.
1356
+ Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
1357
+ The worst was this, my love was my decay.
1358
+
1359
+
1360
+ 81
1361
+ Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
1362
+ Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
1363
+ From hence your memory death cannot take,
1364
+ Although in me each part will be forgotten.
1365
+ Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
1366
+ Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,
1367
+ The earth can yield me but a common grave,
1368
+ When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie,
1369
+ Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
1370
+ Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
1371
+ And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,
1372
+ When all the breathers of this world are dead,
1373
+ You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)
1374
+ Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
1375
+
1376
+
1377
+ 82
1378
+ I grant thou wert not married to my muse,
1379
+ And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
1380
+ The dedicated words which writers use
1381
+ Of their fair subject, blessing every book.
1382
+ Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
1383
+ Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,
1384
+ And therefore art enforced to seek anew,
1385
+ Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.
1386
+ And do so love, yet when they have devised,
1387
+ What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
1388
+ Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,
1389
+ In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.
1390
+ And their gross painting might be better used,
1391
+ Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.
1392
+
1393
+
1394
+ 83
1395
+ I never saw that you did painting need,
1396
+ And therefore to your fair no painting set,
1397
+ I found (or thought I found) you did exceed,
1398
+ That barren tender of a poet's debt:
1399
+ And therefore have I slept in your report,
1400
+ That you your self being extant well might show,
1401
+ How far a modern quill doth come too short,
1402
+ Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
1403
+ This silence for my sin you did impute,
1404
+ Which shall be most my glory being dumb,
1405
+ For I impair not beauty being mute,
1406
+ When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
1407
+ There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,
1408
+ Than both your poets can in praise devise.
1409
+
1410
+
1411
+ 84
1412
+ Who is it that says most, which can say more,
1413
+ Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you?
1414
+ In whose confine immured is the store,
1415
+ Which should example where your equal grew.
1416
+ Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,
1417
+ That to his subject lends not some small glory,
1418
+ But he that writes of you, if he can tell,
1419
+ That you are you, so dignifies his story.
1420
+ Let him but copy what in you is writ,
1421
+ Not making worse what nature made so clear,
1422
+ And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
1423
+ Making his style admired every where.
1424
+ You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
1425
+ Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.
1426
+
1427
+
1428
+ 85
1429
+ My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,
1430
+ While comments of your praise richly compiled,
1431
+ Reserve their character with golden quill,
1432
+ And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
1433
+ I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,
1434
+ And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,
1435
+ To every hymn that able spirit affords,
1436
+ In polished form of well refined pen.
1437
+ Hearing you praised, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,
1438
+ And to the most of praise add something more,
1439
+ But that is in my thought, whose love to you
1440
+ (Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,
1441
+ Then others, for the breath of words respect,
1442
+ Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.
1443
+
1444
+
1445
+ 86
1446
+ Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
1447
+ Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,
1448
+ That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
1449
+ Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
1450
+ Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,
1451
+ Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
1452
+ No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
1453
+ Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
1454
+ He nor that affable familiar ghost
1455
+ Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
1456
+ As victors of my silence cannot boast,
1457
+ I was not sick of any fear from thence.
1458
+ But when your countenance filled up his line,
1459
+ Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.
1460
+
1461
+
1462
+ 87
1463
+ Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
1464
+ And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,
1465
+ The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:
1466
+ My bonds in thee are all determinate.
1467
+ For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
1468
+ And for that riches where is my deserving?
1469
+ The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
1470
+ And so my patent back again is swerving.
1471
+ Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
1472
+ Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking,
1473
+ So thy great gift upon misprision growing,
1474
+ Comes home again, on better judgement making.
1475
+ Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,
1476
+ In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
1477
+
1478
+
1479
+ 88
1480
+ When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
1481
+ And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
1482
+ Upon thy side, against my self I'll fight,
1483
+ And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:
1484
+ With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
1485
+ Upon thy part I can set down a story
1486
+ Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:
1487
+ That thou in losing me, shalt win much glory:
1488
+ And I by this will be a gainer too,
1489
+ For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
1490
+ The injuries that to my self I do,
1491
+ Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
1492
+ Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
1493
+ That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.
1494
+
1495
+
1496
+ 89
1497
+ Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
1498
+ And I will comment upon that offence,
1499
+ Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:
1500
+ Against thy reasons making no defence.
1501
+ Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,
1502
+ To set a form upon desired change,
1503
+ As I'll my self disgrace, knowing thy will,
1504
+ I will acquaintance strangle and look strange:
1505
+ Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue,
1506
+ Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,
1507
+ Lest I (too much profane) should do it wronk:
1508
+ And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
1509
+ For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,
1510
+ For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.
1511
+
1512
+
1513
+ 90
1514
+ Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,
1515
+ Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
1516
+ join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
1517
+ And do not drop in for an after-loss:
1518
+ Ah do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,
1519
+ Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,
1520
+ Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
1521
+ To linger out a purposed overthrow.
1522
+ If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
1523
+ When other petty griefs have done their spite,
1524
+ But in the onset come, so shall I taste
1525
+ At first the very worst of fortune's might.
1526
+ And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
1527
+ Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.
1528
+
1529
+
1530
+ 91
1531
+ Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
1532
+ Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,
1533
+ Some in their garments though new-fangled ill:
1534
+ Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.
1535
+ And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
1536
+ Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,
1537
+ But these particulars are not my measure,
1538
+ All these I better in one general best.
1539
+ Thy love is better than high birth to me,
1540
+ Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,
1541
+ Of more delight than hawks and horses be:
1542
+ And having thee, of all men's pride I boast.
1543
+ Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,
1544
+ All this away, and me most wretchcd make.
1545
+
1546
+
1547
+ 92
1548
+ But do thy worst to steal thy self away,
1549
+ For term of life thou art assured mine,
1550
+ And life no longer than thy love will stay,
1551
+ For it depends upon that love of thine.
1552
+ Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
1553
+ When in the least of them my life hath end,
1554
+ I see, a better state to me belongs
1555
+ Than that, which on thy humour doth depend.
1556
+ Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
1557
+ Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,
1558
+ O what a happy title do I find,
1559
+ Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
1560
+ But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?
1561
+ Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.
1562
+
1563
+
1564
+ 93
1565
+ So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
1566
+ Like a deceived husband, so love's face,
1567
+ May still seem love to me, though altered new:
1568
+ Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.
1569
+ For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
1570
+ Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,
1571
+ In many's looks, the false heart's history
1572
+ Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.
1573
+ But heaven in thy creation did decree,
1574
+ That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,
1575
+ Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,
1576
+ Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.
1577
+ How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,
1578
+ If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.
1579
+
1580
+
1581
+ 94
1582
+ They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
1583
+ That do not do the thing, they most do show,
1584
+ Who moving others, are themselves as stone,
1585
+ Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:
1586
+ They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
1587
+ And husband nature's riches from expense,
1588
+ Tibey are the lords and owners of their faces,
1589
+ Others, but stewards of their excellence:
1590
+ The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
1591
+ Though to it self, it only live and die,
1592
+ But if that flower with base infection meet,
1593
+ The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
1594
+ For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,
1595
+ Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.
1596
+
1597
+
1598
+ 95
1599
+ How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,
1600
+ Which like a canker in the fragrant rose,
1601
+ Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
1602
+ O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
1603
+ That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
1604
+ (Making lascivious comments on thy sport)
1605
+ Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,
1606
+ Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.
1607
+ O what a mansion have those vices got,
1608
+ Which for their habitation chose out thee,
1609
+ Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,
1610
+ And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!
1611
+ Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,
1612
+ The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.
1613
+
1614
+
1615
+ 96
1616
+ Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
1617
+ Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,
1618
+ Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:
1619
+ Thou mak'st faults graces, that to thee resort:
1620
+ As on the finger of a throned queen,
1621
+ The basest jewel will be well esteemed:
1622
+ So are those errors that in thee are seen,
1623
+ To truths translated, and for true things deemed.
1624
+ How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
1625
+ If like a lamb he could his looks translate!
1626
+ How many gazers mightst thou lead away,
1627
+ if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!
1628
+ But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
1629
+ As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
1630
+
1631
+
1632
+ 97
1633
+ How like a winter hath my absence been
1634
+ From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
1635
+ What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
1636
+ What old December's bareness everywhere!
1637
+ And yet this time removed was summer's time,
1638
+ The teeming autumn big with rich increase,
1639
+ Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
1640
+ Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease:
1641
+ Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
1642
+ But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,
1643
+ For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
1644
+ And thou away, the very birds are mute.
1645
+ Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,
1646
+ That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.
1647
+
1648
+
1649
+ 98
1650
+ From you have I been absent in the spring,
1651
+ When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)
1652
+ Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:
1653
+ That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
1654
+ Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
1655
+ Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
1656
+ Could make me any summer's story tell:
1657
+ Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
1658
+ Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
1659
+ Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,
1660
+ They were but sweet, but figures of delight:
1661
+ Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
1662
+ Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,
1663
+ As with your shadow I with these did play.
1664
+
1665
+
1666
+ 99
1667
+ The forward violet thus did I chide,
1668
+ Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
1669
+ If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
1670
+ Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells,
1671
+ In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
1672
+ The lily I condemned for thy hand,
1673
+ And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair,
1674
+ The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
1675
+ One blushing shame, another white despair:
1676
+ A third nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both,
1677
+ And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,
1678
+ But for his theft in pride of all his growth
1679
+ A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
1680
+ More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
1681
+ But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.
1682
+
1683
+
1684
+ 100
1685
+ Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,
1686
+ To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
1687
+ Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
1688
+ Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
1689
+ Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
1690
+ In gentle numbers time so idly spent,
1691
+ Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,
1692
+ And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
1693
+ Rise resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
1694
+ If time have any wrinkle graven there,
1695
+ If any, be a satire to decay,
1696
+ And make time's spoils despised everywhere.
1697
+ Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
1698
+ So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife.
1699
+
1700
+
1701
+ 101
1702
+ O truant Muse what shall be thy amends,
1703
+ For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
1704
+ Both truth and beauty on my love depends:
1705
+ So dost thou too, and therein dignified:
1706
+ Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,
1707
+ 'Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,
1708
+ Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:
1709
+ But best is best, if never intermixed'?
1710
+ Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
1711
+ Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee,
1712
+ To make him much outlive a gilded tomb:
1713
+ And to be praised of ages yet to be.
1714
+ Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,
1715
+ To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.
1716
+
1717
+
1718
+ 102
1719
+ My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,
1720
+ I love not less, though less the show appear,
1721
+ That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,
1722
+ The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
1723
+ Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
1724
+ When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
1725
+ As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
1726
+ And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:
1727
+ Not that the summer is less pleasant now
1728
+ Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
1729
+ But that wild music burthens every bough,
1730
+ And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
1731
+ Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:
1732
+ Because I would not dull you with my song.
1733
+
1734
+
1735
+ 103
1736
+ Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,
1737
+ That having such a scope to show her pride,
1738
+ The argument all bare is of more worth
1739
+ Than when it hath my added praise beside.
1740
+ O blame me not if I no more can write!
1741
+ Look in your glass and there appears a face,
1742
+ That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
1743
+ Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
1744
+ Were it not sinful then striving to mend,
1745
+ To mar the subject that before was well?
1746
+ For to no other pass my verses tend,
1747
+ Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.
1748
+ And more, much more than in my verse can sit,
1749
+ Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.
1750
+
1751
+
1752
+ 104
1753
+ To me fair friend you never can be old,
1754
+ For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
1755
+ Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold,
1756
+ Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
1757
+ Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,
1758
+ In process of the seasons have I seen,
1759
+ Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
1760
+ Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.
1761
+ Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand,
1762
+ Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,
1763
+ So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand
1764
+ Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.
1765
+ For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,
1766
+ Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
1767
+
1768
+
1769
+ 105
1770
+ Let not my love be called idolatry,
1771
+ Nor my beloved as an idol show,
1772
+ Since all alike my songs and praises be
1773
+ To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
1774
+ Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
1775
+ Still constant in a wondrous excellence,
1776
+ Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
1777
+ One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
1778
+ Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,
1779
+ Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words,
1780
+ And in this change is my invention spent,
1781
+ Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
1782
+ Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.
1783
+ Which three till now, never kept seat in one.
1784
+
1785
+
1786
+ 106
1787
+ When in the chronicle of wasted time,
1788
+ I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
1789
+ And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
1790
+ In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,
1791
+ Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
1792
+ Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
1793
+ I see their antique pen would have expressed,
1794
+ Even such a beauty as you master now.
1795
+ So all their praises are but prophecies
1796
+ Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
1797
+ And for they looked but with divining eyes,
1798
+ They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
1799
+ For we which now behold these present days,
1800
+ Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
1801
+
1802
+
1803
+ 107
1804
+ Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,
1805
+ Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
1806
+ Can yet the lease of my true love control,
1807
+ Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
1808
+ The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
1809
+ And the sad augurs mock their own presage,
1810
+ Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
1811
+ And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
1812
+ Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
1813
+ My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
1814
+ Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,
1815
+ While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.
1816
+ And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
1817
+ When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.
1818
+
1819
+
1820
+ 108
1821
+ What's in the brain that ink may character,
1822
+ Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit,
1823
+ What's new to speak, what now to register,
1824
+ That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
1825
+ Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,
1826
+ I must each day say o'er the very same,
1827
+ Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
1828
+ Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
1829
+ So that eternal love in love's fresh case,
1830
+ Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
1831
+ Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
1832
+ But makes antiquity for aye his page,
1833
+ Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
1834
+ Where time and outward form would show it dead.
1835
+
1836
+
1837
+ 109
1838
+ O never say that I was false of heart,
1839
+ Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,
1840
+ As easy might I from my self depart,
1841
+ As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
1842
+ That is my home of love, if I have ranged,
1843
+ Like him that travels I return again,
1844
+ Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
1845
+ So that my self bring water for my stain,
1846
+ Never believe though in my nature reigned,
1847
+ All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
1848
+ That it could so preposterously be stained,
1849
+ To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:
1850
+ For nothing this wide universe I call,
1851
+ Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all.
1852
+
1853
+
1854
+ 110
1855
+ Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
1856
+ And made my self a motley to the view,
1857
+ Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
1858
+ Made old offences of affections new.
1859
+ Most true it is, that I have looked on truth
1860
+ Askance and strangely: but by all above,
1861
+ These blenches gave my heart another youth,
1862
+ And worse essays proved thee my best of love.
1863
+ Now all is done, have what shall have no end,
1864
+ Mine appetite I never more will grind
1865
+ On newer proof, to try an older friend,
1866
+ A god in love, to whom I am confined.
1867
+ Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
1868
+ Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.
1869
+
1870
+
1871
+ 111
1872
+ O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
1873
+ The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
1874
+ That did not better for my life provide,
1875
+ Than public means which public manners breeds.
1876
+ Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
1877
+ And almost thence my nature is subdued
1878
+ To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
1879
+ Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,
1880
+ Whilst like a willing patient I will drink,
1881
+ Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection,
1882
+ No bitterness that I will bitter think,
1883
+ Nor double penance to correct correction.
1884
+ Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,
1885
+ Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
1886
+
1887
+
1888
+ 112
1889
+ Your love and pity doth th' impression fill,
1890
+ Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,
1891
+ For what care I who calls me well or ill,
1892
+ So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
1893
+ You are my all the world, and I must strive,
1894
+ To know my shames and praises from your tongue,
1895
+ None else to me, nor I to none alive,
1896
+ That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.
1897
+ In so profound abysm I throw all care
1898
+ Of others' voices, that my adder's sense,
1899
+ To critic and to flatterer stopped are:
1900
+ Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.
1901
+ You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
1902
+ That all the world besides methinks are dead.
1903
+
1904
+
1905
+ 113
1906
+ Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
1907
+ And that which governs me to go about,
1908
+ Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
1909
+ Seems seeing, but effectually is out:
1910
+ For it no form delivers to the heart
1911
+ Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,
1912
+ Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
1913
+ Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:
1914
+ For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
1915
+ The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
1916
+ The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:
1917
+ The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
1918
+ Incapable of more, replete with you,
1919
+ My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.
1920
+
1921
+
1922
+ 114
1923
+ Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you
1924
+ Drink up the monarch's plague this flattery?
1925
+ Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
1926
+ And that your love taught it this alchemy?
1927
+ To make of monsters, and things indigest,
1928
+ Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
1929
+ Creating every bad a perfect best
1930
+ As fast as objects to his beams assemble:
1931
+ O 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,
1932
+ And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,
1933
+ Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,
1934
+ And to his palate doth prepare the cup.
1935
+ If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,
1936
+ That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
1937
+
1938
+
1939
+ 115
1940
+ Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
1941
+ Even those that said I could not love you dearer,
1942
+ Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,
1943
+ My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,
1944
+ But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents
1945
+ Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
1946
+ Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
1947
+ Divert strong minds to the course of alt'ring things:
1948
+ Alas why fearing of time's tyranny,
1949
+ Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'
1950
+ When I was certain o'er incertainty,
1951
+ Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
1952
+ Love is a babe, then might I not say so
1953
+ To give full growth to that which still doth grow.
1954
+
1955
+
1956
+ 116
1957
+ Let me not to the marriage of true minds
1958
+ Admit impediments, love is not love
1959
+ Which alters when it alteration finds,
1960
+ Or bends with the remover to remove.
1961
+ O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
1962
+ That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
1963
+ It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
1964
+ Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
1965
+ Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
1966
+ Within his bending sickle's compass come,
1967
+ Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
1968
+ But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
1969
+ If this be error and upon me proved,
1970
+ I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
1971
+
1972
+
1973
+ 117
1974
+ Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,
1975
+ Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
1976
+ Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
1977
+ Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,
1978
+ That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
1979
+ And given to time your own dear-purchased right,
1980
+ That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
1981
+ Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
1982
+ Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
1983
+ And on just proof surmise, accumulate,
1984
+ Bring me within the level of your frown,
1985
+ But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:
1986
+ Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
1987
+ The constancy and virtue of your love.
1988
+
1989
+
1990
+ 118
1991
+ Like as to make our appetite more keen
1992
+ With eager compounds we our palate urge,
1993
+ As to prevent our maladies unseen,
1994
+ We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
1995
+ Even so being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,
1996
+ To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
1997
+ And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,
1998
+ To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
1999
+ Thus policy in love t' anticipate
2000
+ The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
2001
+ And brought to medicine a healthful state
2002
+ Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.
2003
+ But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
2004
+ Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you.
2005
+
2006
+
2007
+ 119
2008
+ What potions have I drunk of Siren tears
2009
+ Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
2010
+ Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
2011
+ Still losing when I saw my self to win!
2012
+ What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
2013
+ Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!
2014
+ How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
2015
+ In the distraction of this madding fever!
2016
+ O benefit of ill, now I find true
2017
+ That better is, by evil still made better.
2018
+ And ruined love when it is built anew
2019
+ Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
2020
+ So I return rebuked to my content,
2021
+ And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.
2022
+
2023
+
2024
+ 120
2025
+ That you were once unkind befriends me now,
2026
+ And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
2027
+ Needs must I under my transgression bow,
2028
+ Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.
2029
+ For if you were by my unkindness shaken
2030
+ As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time,
2031
+ And I a tyrant have no leisure taken
2032
+ To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
2033
+ O that our night of woe might have remembered
2034
+ My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
2035
+ And soon to you, as you to me then tendered
2036
+ The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
2037
+ But that your trespass now becomes a fee,
2038
+ Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
2039
+
2040
+
2041
+ 121
2042
+ 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
2043
+ When not to be, receives reproach of being,
2044
+ And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,
2045
+ Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.
2046
+ For why should others' false adulterate eyes
2047
+ Give salutation to my sportive blood?
2048
+ Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
2049
+ Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
2050
+ No, I am that I am, and they that level
2051
+ At my abuses, reckon up their own,
2052
+ I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
2053
+ By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown
2054
+ Unless this general evil they maintain,
2055
+ All men are bad and in their badness reign.
2056
+
2057
+
2058
+ 122
2059
+ Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
2060
+ Full charactered with lasting memory,
2061
+ Which shall above that idle rank remain
2062
+ Beyond all date even to eternity.
2063
+ Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
2064
+ Have faculty by nature to subsist,
2065
+ Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
2066
+ Of thee, thy record never can be missed:
2067
+ That poor retention could not so much hold,
2068
+ Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,
2069
+ Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
2070
+ To trust those tables that receive thee more:
2071
+ To keep an adjunct to remember thee
2072
+ Were to import forgetfulness in me.
2073
+
2074
+
2075
+ 123
2076
+ No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,
2077
+ Thy pyramids built up with newer might
2078
+ To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,
2079
+ They are but dressings Of a former sight:
2080
+ Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire,
2081
+ What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
2082
+ And rather make them born to our desire,
2083
+ Than think that we before have heard them told:
2084
+ Thy registers and thee I both defy,
2085
+ Not wond'ring at the present, nor the past,
2086
+ For thy records, and what we see doth lie,
2087
+ Made more or less by thy continual haste:
2088
+ This I do vow and this shall ever be,
2089
+ I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.
2090
+
2091
+
2092
+ 124
2093
+ If my dear love were but the child of state,
2094
+ It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,
2095
+ As subject to time's love or to time's hate,
2096
+ Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
2097
+ No it was builded far from accident,
2098
+ It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
2099
+ Under the blow of thralled discontent,
2100
+ Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:
2101
+ It fears not policy that heretic,
2102
+ Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,
2103
+ But all alone stands hugely politic,
2104
+ That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
2105
+ To this I witness call the fools of time,
2106
+ Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
2107
+
2108
+
2109
+ 125
2110
+ Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
2111
+ With my extern the outward honouring,
2112
+ Or laid great bases for eternity,
2113
+ Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
2114
+ Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
2115
+ Lose all, and more by paying too much rent
2116
+ For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,
2117
+ Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?
2118
+ No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
2119
+ And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
2120
+ Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
2121
+ But mutual render, only me for thee.
2122
+ Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul
2123
+ When most impeached, stands least in thy control.
2124
+
2125
+
2126
+ 126
2127
+ O thou my lovely boy who in thy power,
2128
+ Dost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour:
2129
+ Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st,
2130
+ Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.
2131
+ If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)
2132
+ As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,
2133
+ She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
2134
+ May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.
2135
+ Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,
2136
+ She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!
2137
+ Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
2138
+ And her quietus is to render thee.
2139
+
2140
+
2141
+ 127
2142
+ In the old age black was not counted fair,
2143
+ Or if it were it bore not beauty's name:
2144
+ But now is black beauty's successive heir,
2145
+ And beauty slandered with a bastard shame,
2146
+ For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
2147
+ Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,
2148
+ Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,
2149
+ But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
2150
+ Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
2151
+ Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,
2152
+ At such who not born fair no beauty lack,
2153
+ Slandering creation with a false esteem,
2154
+ Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
2155
+ That every tongue says beauty should look so.
2156
+
2157
+
2158
+ 128
2159
+ How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,
2160
+ Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
2161
+ With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st
2162
+ The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
2163
+ Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
2164
+ To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
2165
+ Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
2166
+ At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand.
2167
+ To be so tickled they would change their state
2168
+ And situation with those dancing chips,
2169
+ O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
2170
+ Making dead wood more blest than living lips,
2171
+ Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
2172
+ Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
2173
+
2174
+
2175
+ 129
2176
+ Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
2177
+ Is lust in action, and till action, lust
2178
+ Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody full of blame,
2179
+ Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
2180
+ Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,
2181
+ Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
2182
+ Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,
2183
+ On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
2184
+ Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
2185
+ Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,
2186
+ A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,
2187
+ Before a joy proposed behind a dream.
2188
+ All this the world well knows yet none knows well,
2189
+ To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
2190
+
2191
+
2192
+ 130
2193
+ My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
2194
+ Coral is far more red, than her lips red,
2195
+ If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:
2196
+ If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:
2197
+ I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
2198
+ But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
2199
+ And in some perfumes is there more delight,
2200
+ Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
2201
+ I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
2202
+ That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
2203
+ I grant I never saw a goddess go,
2204
+ My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
2205
+ And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,
2206
+ As any she belied with false compare.
2207
+
2208
+
2209
+ 131
2210
+ Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
2211
+ As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
2212
+ For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
2213
+ Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
2214
+ Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,
2215
+ Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;
2216
+ To say they err, I dare not be so bold,
2217
+ Although I swear it to my self alone.
2218
+ And to be sure that is not false I swear,
2219
+ A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,
2220
+ One on another's neck do witness bear
2221
+ Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
2222
+ In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
2223
+ And thence this slander as I think proceeds.
2224
+
2225
+
2226
+ 132
2227
+ Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,
2228
+ Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
2229
+ Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
2230
+ Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
2231
+ And truly not the morning sun of heaven
2232
+ Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
2233
+ Nor that full star that ushers in the even
2234
+ Doth half that glory to the sober west
2235
+ As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
2236
+ O let it then as well beseem thy heart
2237
+ To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
2238
+ And suit thy pity like in every part.
2239
+ Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
2240
+ And all they foul that thy complexion lack.
2241
+
2242
+
2243
+ 133
2244
+ Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
2245
+ For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;
2246
+ Is't not enough to torture me alone,
2247
+ But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?
2248
+ Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,
2249
+ And my next self thou harder hast engrossed,
2250
+ Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,
2251
+ A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:
2252
+ Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,
2253
+ But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail,
2254
+ Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,
2255
+ Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.
2256
+ And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,
2257
+ Perforce am thine and all that is in me.
2258
+
2259
+
2260
+ 134
2261
+ So now I have confessed that he is thine,
2262
+ And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,
2263
+ My self I'll forfeit, so that other mine,
2264
+ Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:
2265
+ But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
2266
+ For thou art covetous, and he is kind,
2267
+ He learned but surety-like to write for me,
2268
+ Under that bond that him as fist doth bind.
2269
+ The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
2270
+ Thou usurer that put'st forth all to use,
2271
+ And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,
2272
+ So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
2273
+ Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,
2274
+ He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.
2275
+
2276
+
2277
+ 135
2278
+ Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,
2279
+ And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus,
2280
+ More than enough am I that vex thee still,
2281
+ To thy sweet will making addition thus.
2282
+ Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious,
2283
+ Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
2284
+ Shall will in others seem right gracious,
2285
+ And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
2286
+ The sea all water, yet receives rain still,
2287
+ And in abundance addeth to his store,
2288
+ So thou being rich in will add to thy will
2289
+ One will of mine to make thy large will more.
2290
+ Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,
2291
+ Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'
2292
+
2293
+
2294
+ 136
2295
+ If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
2296
+ Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will',
2297
+ And will thy soul knows is admitted there,
2298
+ Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.
2299
+ 'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love,
2300
+ Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,
2301
+ In things of great receipt with case we prove,
2302
+ Among a number one is reckoned none.
2303
+ Then in the number let me pass untold,
2304
+ Though in thy store's account I one must be,
2305
+ For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,
2306
+ That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.
2307
+ Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
2308
+ And then thou lov'st me for my name is Will.
2309
+
2310
+
2311
+ 137
2312
+ Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
2313
+ That they behold and see not what they see?
2314
+ They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
2315
+ Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
2316
+ If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,
2317
+ Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,
2318
+ Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
2319
+ Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
2320
+ Why should my heart think that a several plot,
2321
+ Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?
2322
+ Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not
2323
+ To put fair truth upon so foul a face?
2324
+ In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,
2325
+ And to this false plague are they now transferred.
2326
+
2327
+
2328
+ 138
2329
+ When my love swears that she is made of truth,
2330
+ I do believe her though I know she lies,
2331
+ That she might think me some untutored youth,
2332
+ Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
2333
+ Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
2334
+ Although she knows my days are past the best,
2335
+ Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue,
2336
+ On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
2337
+ But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
2338
+ And wherefore say not I that I am old?
2339
+ O love's best habit is in seeming trust,
2340
+ And age in love, loves not to have years told.
2341
+ Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
2342
+ And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
2343
+
2344
+
2345
+ 139
2346
+ O call not me to justify the wrong,
2347
+ That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,
2348
+ Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,
2349
+ Use power with power, and slay me not by art,
2350
+ Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,
2351
+ Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,
2352
+ What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might
2353
+ Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?
2354
+ Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,
2355
+ Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,
2356
+ And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
2357
+ That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
2358
+ Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,
2359
+ Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.
2360
+
2361
+
2362
+ 140
2363
+ Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press
2364
+ My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:
2365
+ Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,
2366
+ The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
2367
+ If I might teach thee wit better it were,
2368
+ Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,
2369
+ As testy sick men when their deaths be near,
2370
+ No news but health from their physicians know.
2371
+ For if I should despair I should grow mad,
2372
+ And in my madness might speak ill of thee,
2373
+ Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
2374
+ Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
2375
+ That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
2376
+ Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
2377
+
2378
+
2379
+ 141
2380
+ In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
2381
+ For they in thee a thousand errors note,
2382
+ But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
2383
+ Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.
2384
+ Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted,
2385
+ Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,
2386
+ Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
2387
+ To any sensual feast with thee alone:
2388
+ But my five wits, nor my five senses can
2389
+ Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
2390
+ Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
2391
+ Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
2392
+ Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
2393
+ That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.
2394
+
2395
+
2396
+ 142
2397
+ Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
2398
+ Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,
2399
+ O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,
2400
+ And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,
2401
+ Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,
2402
+ That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,
2403
+ And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,
2404
+ Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents.
2405
+ Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those,
2406
+ Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,
2407
+ Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,
2408
+ Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
2409
+ If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
2410
+ By self-example mayst thou be denied.
2411
+
2412
+
2413
+ 143
2414
+ Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch,
2415
+ One of her feathered creatures broke away,
2416
+ Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch
2417
+ In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:
2418
+ Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
2419
+ Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent,
2420
+ To follow that which flies before her face:
2421
+ Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;
2422
+ So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,
2423
+ Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,
2424
+ But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:
2425
+ And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind.
2426
+ So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,
2427
+ If thou turn back and my loud crying still.
2428
+
2429
+
2430
+ 144
2431
+ Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
2432
+ Which like two spirits do suggest me still,
2433
+ The better angel is a man right fair:
2434
+ The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
2435
+ To win me soon to hell my female evil,
2436
+ Tempteth my better angel from my side,
2437
+ And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:
2438
+ Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
2439
+ And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
2440
+ Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,
2441
+ But being both from me both to each friend,
2442
+ I guess one angel in another's hell.
2443
+ Yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt,
2444
+ Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
2445
+
2446
+
2447
+ 145
2448
+ Those lips that Love's own hand did make,
2449
+ Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',
2450
+ To me that languished for her sake:
2451
+ But when she saw my woeful state,
2452
+ Straight in her heart did mercy come,
2453
+ Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,
2454
+ Was used in giving gentle doom:
2455
+ And taught it thus anew to greet:
2456
+ 'I hate' she altered with an end,
2457
+ That followed it as gentle day,
2458
+ Doth follow night who like a fiend
2459
+ From heaven to hell is flown away.
2460
+ 'I hate', from hate away she threw,
2461
+ And saved my life saying 'not you'.
2462
+
2463
+
2464
+ 146
2465
+ Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth,
2466
+ My sinful earth these rebel powers array,
2467
+ Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth
2468
+ Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
2469
+ Why so large cost having so short a lease,
2470
+ Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
2471
+ Shall worms inheritors of this excess
2472
+ Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?
2473
+ Then soul live thou upon thy servant's loss,
2474
+ And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
2475
+ Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
2476
+ Within be fed, without be rich no more,
2477
+ So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
2478
+ And death once dead, there's no more dying then.
2479
+
2480
+
2481
+ 147
2482
+ My love is as a fever longing still,
2483
+ For that which longer nurseth the disease,
2484
+ Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
2485
+ Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please:
2486
+ My reason the physician to my love,
2487
+ Angry that his prescriptions are not kept
2488
+ Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
2489
+ Desire is death, which physic did except.
2490
+ Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
2491
+ And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,
2492
+ My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,
2493
+ At random from the truth vainly expressed.
2494
+ For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
2495
+ Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
2496
+
2497
+
2498
+ 148
2499
+ O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
2500
+ Which have no correspondence with true sight,
2501
+ Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,
2502
+ That censures falsely what they see aright?
2503
+ If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
2504
+ What means the world to say it is not so?
2505
+ If it be not, then love doth well denote,
2506
+ Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,
2507
+ How can it? O how can love's eye be true,
2508
+ That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
2509
+ No marvel then though I mistake my view,
2510
+ The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.
2511
+ O cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind,
2512
+ Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
2513
+
2514
+
2515
+ 149
2516
+ Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,
2517
+ When I against my self with thee partake?
2518
+ Do I not think on thee when I forgot
2519
+ Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake?
2520
+ Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,
2521
+ On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,
2522
+ Nay if thou lour'st on me do I not spend
2523
+ Revenge upon my self with present moan?
2524
+ What merit do I in my self respect,
2525
+ That is so proud thy service to despise,
2526
+ When all my best doth worship thy defect,
2527
+ Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
2528
+ But love hate on for now I know thy mind,
2529
+ Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.
2530
+
2531
+
2532
+ 150
2533
+ O from what power hast thou this powerful might,
2534
+ With insufficiency my heart to sway,
2535
+ To make me give the lie to my true sight,
2536
+ And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
2537
+ Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
2538
+ That in the very refuse of thy deeds,
2539
+ There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
2540
+ That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?
2541
+ Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
2542
+ The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
2543
+ O though I love what others do abhor,
2544
+ With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.
2545
+ If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
2546
+ More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
2547
+
2548
+
2549
+ 151
2550
+ Love is too young to know what conscience is,
2551
+ Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
2552
+ Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,
2553
+ Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
2554
+ For thou betraying me, I do betray
2555
+ My nobler part to my gross body's treason,
2556
+ My soul doth tell my body that he may,
2557
+ Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,
2558
+ But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
2559
+ As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,
2560
+ He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
2561
+ To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
2562
+ No want of conscience hold it that I call,
2563
+ Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.
2564
+
2565
+
2566
+ 152
2567
+ In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
2568
+ But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,
2569
+ In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,
2570
+ In vowing new hate after new love bearing:
2571
+ But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
2572
+ When I break twenty? I am perjured most,
2573
+ For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:
2574
+ And all my honest faith in thee is lost.
2575
+ For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:
2576
+ Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,
2577
+ And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,
2578
+ Or made them swear against the thing they see.
2579
+ For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I,
2580
+ To swear against the truth so foul a be.
2581
+
2582
+
2583
+ 153
2584
+ Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,
2585
+ A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
2586
+ And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
2587
+ In a cold valley-fountain of that ground:
2588
+ Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love,
2589
+ A dateless lively heat still to endure,
2590
+ And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove,
2591
+ Against strange maladies a sovereign cure:
2592
+ But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,
2593
+ The boy for trial needs would touch my breast,
2594
+ I sick withal the help of bath desired,
2595
+ And thither hied a sad distempered guest.
2596
+ But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,
2597
+ Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.
2598
+
2599
+
2600
+ 154
2601
+ The little Love-god lying once asleep,
2602
+ Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
2603
+ Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,
2604
+ Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,
2605
+ The fairest votary took up that fire,
2606
+ Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,
2607
+ And so the general of hot desire,
2608
+ Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.
2609
+ This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
2610
+ Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
2611
+ Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
2612
+ For men discased, but I my mistress' thrall,
2613
+ Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
2614
+ Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.
2615
+
2616
+
2617
+ THE END
2618
+
2619
+
2620
+
2621
+ <<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
2622
+ SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
2623
+ PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF ILLINOIS BENEDICTINE COLLEGE
2624
+ WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
2625
+ DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
2626
+ PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
2627
+ COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
2628
+ SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
2629
+
2630
+
2631
+
2632
+
2633
+
2634
+ 1603
2635
+
2636
+ ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL
2637
+
2638
+ by William Shakespeare
2639
+
2640
+
2641
+ Dramatis Personae
2642
+
2643
+ KING OF FRANCE
2644
+ THE DUKE OF FLORENCE
2645
+ BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon
2646
+ LAFEU, an old lord
2647
+ PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram
2648
+ TWO FRENCH LORDS, serving with Bertram
2649
+
2650
+ STEWARD, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon
2651
+ LAVACHE, a clown and Servant to the Countess of Rousillon
2652
+ A PAGE, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon
2653
+
2654
+ COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, mother to Bertram
2655
+ HELENA, a gentlewoman protected by the Countess
2656
+ A WIDOW OF FLORENCE.
2657
+ DIANA, daughter to the Widow
2658
+
2659
+
2660
+ VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow
2661
+ MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow
2662
+
2663
+ Lords, Officers, Soldiers, etc., French and Florentine
2664
+
2665
+
2666
+
2667
+ <<THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM
2668
+ SHAKESPEARE IS COPYRIGHT 1990-1993 BY WORLD LIBRARY, INC., AND IS
2669
+ PROVIDED BY PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF ILLINOIS BENEDICTINE COLLEGE
2670
+ WITH PERMISSION. ELECTRONIC AND MACHINE READABLE COPIES MAY BE
2671
+ DISTRIBUTED SO LONG AS SUCH COPIES (1) ARE FOR YOUR OR OTHERS
2672
+ PERSONAL USE ONLY, AND (2) ARE NOT DISTRIBUTED OR USED
2673
+ COMMERCIALLY. PROHIBITED COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION INCLUDES BY ANY
2674
+ SERVICE THAT CHARGES FOR DOWNLOAD TIME OR FOR MEMBERSHIP.>>
2675
+
2676
+
2677
+
2678
+
2679
+ SCENE:
2680
+ Rousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles
2681
+
2682
+
2683
+ ACT I. SCENE 1.
2684
+ Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace
2685
+
2686
+ Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black
2687
+
2688
+ COUNTESS. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.
2689
+ BERTRAM. And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew;
2690
+ but I must attend his Majesty's command, to whom I am now in
2691
+ ward, evermore in subjection.
2692
+ LAFEU. You shall find of the King a husband, madam; you, sir, a
2693
+ father. He that so generally is at all times good must of
2694
+ necessity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would stir it
2695
+ up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such
2696
+ abundance.
2697
+ COUNTESS. What hope is there of his Majesty's amendment?
2698
+ LAFEU. He hath abandon'd his physicians, madam; under whose
2699
+ practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other
2700
+ advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.
2701
+ COUNTESS. This young gentlewoman had a father- O, that 'had,' how
2702
+ sad a passage 'tis!-whose skill was almost as great as his
2703
+ honesty; had it stretch'd so far, would have made nature
2704
+ immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for
2705
+ the King's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of
2706
+ the King's disease.
2707
+ LAFEU. How call'd you the man you speak of, madam?
2708
+ COUNTESS. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his
2709
+ great right to be so- Gerard de Narbon.
2710
+ LAFEU. He was excellent indeed, madam; the King very lately spoke
2711
+ of him admiringly and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have
2712
+ liv'd still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.
2713
+ BERTRAM. What is it, my good lord, the King languishes of?
2714
+ LAFEU. A fistula, my lord.
2715
+ BERTRAM. I heard not of it before.
2716
+ LAFEU. I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the
2717
+ daughter of Gerard de Narbon?
2718
+ COUNTESS. His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my
2719
+ overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education
2720
+ promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts
2721
+ fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities,
2722
+ there commendations go with pity-they are virtues and traitors
2723
+ too. In her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives
2724
+ her honesty, and achieves her goodness.
2725
+ LAFEU. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.
2726
+ COUNTESS. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in.
2727
+ The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the
2728
+ tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No
2729
+ more of this, Helena; go to, no more, lest it be rather thought
2730
+ you affect a sorrow than to have-
2731
+ HELENA. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
2732
+ LAFEU. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead: excessive
2733
+ grief the enemy to the living.
2734
+ COUNTESS. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it
2735
+ soon mortal.
2736
+ BERTRAM. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
2737
+ LAFEU. How understand we that?
2738
+ COUNTESS. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father
2739
+ In manners, as in shape! Thy blood and virtue
2740
+ Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
2741
+ Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
2742
+ Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy
2743
+ Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
2744
+ Under thy own life's key; be check'd for silence,
2745
+ But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
2746
+ That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
2747
+ Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,
2748
+ 'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
2749
+ Advise him.
2750
+ LAFEU. He cannot want the best
2751
+ That shall attend his love.
2752
+ COUNTESS. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram. Exit
2753
+ BERTRAM. The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts be
2754
+ servants to you! [To HELENA] Be comfortable to my mother, your
2755
+ mistress, and make much of her.
2756
+ LAFEU. Farewell, pretty lady; you must hold the credit of your
2757
+ father. Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU
2758
+ HELENA. O, were that all! I think not on my father;
2759
+ And these great tears grace his remembrance more
2760
+ Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
2761
+ I have forgot him; my imagination
2762
+ Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.
2763
+ I am undone; there is no living, none,
2764
+ If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one
2765
+ That I should love a bright particular star
2766
+ And think to wed it, he is so above me.
2767
+ In his bright radiance and collateral light
2768
+ Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
2769
+ Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
2770
+ The hind that would be mated by the lion
2771
+ Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,
2772
+ To see him every hour; to sit and draw
2773
+ His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
2774
+ In our heart's table-heart too capable
2775
+ Of every line and trick of his sweet favour.
2776
+ But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
2777
+ Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?
2778
+
2779
+ Enter PAROLLES
2780
+
2781
+ [Aside] One that goes with him. I love him for his sake;
2782
+ And yet I know him a notorious liar,
2783
+ Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
2784
+ Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him
2785
+ That they take place when virtue's steely bones
2786
+ Looks bleak i' th' cold wind; withal, full oft we see
2787
+ Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
2788
+ PAROLLES. Save you, fair queen!
2789
+ HELENA. And you, monarch!
2790
+ PAROLLES. No.
2791
+ HELENA. And no.
2792
+ PAROLLES. Are you meditating on virginity?
2793
+ HELENA. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a
2794
+ question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it
2795
+ against him?
2796
+ PAROLLES. Keep him out.
2797
+ HELENA. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the
2798
+ defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.
2799
+ PAROLLES. There is none. Man, setting down before you, will
2800
+ undermine you and blow you up.
2801
+ HELENA. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up!
2802
+ Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men?
2803
+ PAROLLES. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown
2804
+ up; marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves
2805
+ made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth
2806
+ of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational
2807
+ increase; and there was never virgin got till virginity was first
2808
+ lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity
2809
+ by being once lost may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it
2810
+ is ever lost. 'Tis too cold a companion; away with't.
2811
+ HELENA. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a
2812
+ virgin.
2813
+ PAROLLES. There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the rule
2814
+ of nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your
2815
+ mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs
2816
+ himself is a virgin; virginity murders itself, and should be
2817
+ buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate
2818
+ offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a
2819
+ cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with
2820
+ feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud,
2821
+ idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the
2822
+ canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by't. Out with't.
2823
+ Within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly
2824
+ increase; and the principal itself not much the worse. Away
2825
+ with't.
2826
+ HELENA. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?
2827
+ PAROLLES. Let me see. Marry, ill to like him that ne'er it likes.
2828
+ 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept,
2829
+ the less worth. Off with't while 'tis vendible; answer the time
2830
+ of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of
2831
+ fashion, richly suited but unsuitable; just like the brooch and
2832
+ the toothpick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your
2833
+ pie and your porridge than in your cheek. And your virginity,
2834
+ your old virginity, is like one of our French wither'd pears: it
2835
+ looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a wither'd pear; it was
2836
+ formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a wither'd pear. Will you
2837
+ anything with it?
2838
+ HELENA. Not my virginity yet.
2839
+ There shall your master have a thousand loves,
2840
+ A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
2841
+ A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
2842
+ A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
2843
+ A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
2844
+ His humble ambition, proud humility,
2845
+ His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
2846
+ His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
2847
+ Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms
2848
+ That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-
2849
+ I know not what he shall. God send him well!
2850
+ The court's a learning-place, and he is one-
2851
+ PAROLLES. What one, i' faith?
2852
+ HELENA. That I wish well. 'Tis pity-
2853
+ PAROLLES. What's pity?
2854
+ HELENA. That wishing well had not a body in't
2855
+ Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,
2856
+ Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
2857
+ Might with effects of them follow our friends
2858
+ And show what we alone must think, which never
2859
+ Returns us thanks.
2860
+
2861
+ Enter PAGE
2862
+
2863
+ PAGE. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you. Exit PAGE
2864
+ PAROLLES. Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I will
2865
+ think of thee at court.
2866
+ HELENA. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.
2867
+ PAROLLES. Under Mars, I.
2868
+ HELENA. I especially think, under Mars.
2869
+ PAROLLES. Why under Man?
2870
+ HELENA. The wars hath so kept you under that you must needs be born
2871
+ under Mars.
2872
+ PAROLLES. When he was predominant.
2873
+ HELENA. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
2874
+ PAROLLES. Why think you so?
2875
+ HELENA. You go so much backward when you fight.
2876
+ PAROLLES. That's for advantage.
2877
+ HELENA. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: but the
2878
+ composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of
2879
+ a good wing, and I like the wear well.
2880
+ PAROLLES. I am so full of business I cannot answer thee acutely. I
2881
+ will return perfect courtier; in the which my instruction shall
2882
+ serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's
2883
+ counsel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else
2884
+ thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes
2885
+ thee away. Farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers;
2886
+ when thou hast none, remember thy friends. Get thee a good
2887
+ husband and use him as he uses thee. So, farewell.
2888
+ Exit
2889
+ HELENA. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
2890
+ Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky
2891
+ Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull
2892
+ Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
2893
+ What power is it which mounts my love so high,
2894
+ That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
2895
+ The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
2896
+ To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
2897
+ Impossible be strange attempts to those
2898
+ That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose
2899
+ What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove
2900
+ To show her merit that did miss her love?
2901
+ The King's disease-my project may deceive me,
2902
+ But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me. Exit
2903
+
2904
+
2905
+
2906
+
2907
+ ACT I. SCENE 2.
2908
+ Paris. The KING'S palace
2909
+
2910
+ Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING OF FRANCE, with letters,
2911
+ and divers ATTENDANTS
2912
+
2913
+ KING. The Florentines and Senoys are by th' ears;
2914
+ Have fought with equal fortune, and continue
2915
+ A braving war.
2916
+ FIRST LORD. So 'tis reported, sir.
2917
+ KING. Nay, 'tis most credible. We here receive it,
2918
+ A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
2919
+ With caution, that the Florentine will move us
2920
+ For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
2921
+ Prejudicates the business, and would seem
2922
+ To have us make denial.
2923
+ FIRST LORD. His love and wisdom,
2924
+ Approv'd so to your Majesty, may plead
2925
+ For amplest credence.
2926
+ KING. He hath arm'd our answer,
2927
+ And Florence is denied before he comes;
2928
+ Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
2929
+ The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
2930
+ To stand on either part.
2931
+ SECOND LORD. It well may serve
2932
+ A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
2933
+ For breathing and exploit.
2934
+ KING. What's he comes here?
2935
+
2936
+ Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES
2937
+
2938
+ FIRST LORD. It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,
2939
+ Young Bertram.
2940
+ KING. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
2941
+ Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
2942
+ Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral parts
2943
+ Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.
2944
+ BERTRAM. My thanks and duty are your Majesty's.
2945
+ KING. I would I had that corporal soundness now,
2946
+ As when thy father and myself in friendship
2947
+ First tried our soldiership. He did look far
2948
+ Into the service of the time, and was
2949
+ Discipled of the bravest. He lasted long;
2950
+ But on us both did haggish age steal on,
2951
+ And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
2952
+ To talk of your good father. In his youth
2953
+ He had the wit which I can well observe
2954
+ To-day in our young lords; but they may jest
2955
+ Till their own scorn return to them unnoted
2956
+ Ere they can hide their levity in honour.
2957
+ So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
2958
+ Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
2959
+ His equal had awak'd them; and his honour,
2960
+ Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
2961
+ Exception bid him speak, and at this time
2962
+ His tongue obey'd his hand. Who were below him
2963
+ He us'd as creatures of another place;
2964
+ And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
2965
+ Making them proud of his humility
2966
+ In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
2967
+ Might be a copy to these younger times;
2968
+ Which, followed well, would demonstrate them now
2969
+ But goers backward.
2970
+ BERTRAM. His good remembrance, sir,
2971
+ Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;
2972
+ So in approof lives not his epitaph
2973
+ As in your royal speech.
2974
+ KING. Would I were with him! He would always say-
2975
+ Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
2976
+ He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them
2977
+ To grow there, and to bear- 'Let me not live'-
2978
+ This his good melancholy oft began,
2979
+ On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
2980
+ When it was out-'Let me not live' quoth he
2981
+ 'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
2982
+ Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
2983
+ All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
2984
+ Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
2985
+ Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd.
2986
+ I, after him, do after him wish too,
2987
+ Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
2988
+ I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
2989
+ To give some labourers room.
2990
+ SECOND LORD. You're loved, sir;
2991
+ They that least lend it you shall lack you first.
2992
+ KING. I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, Count,
2993
+ Since the physician at your father's died?
2994
+ He was much fam'd.
2995
+ BERTRAM. Some six months since, my lord.
2996
+ KING. If he were living, I would try him yet-
2997
+ Lend me an arm-the rest have worn me out
2998
+ With several applications. Nature and sickness
2999
+ Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, Count;
3000
+ My son's no dearer.
3001
+ BERTRAM. Thank your Majesty. Exeunt [Flourish]