poefy 0.5.1
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- checksums.yaml +7 -0
- data/.gitignore +74 -0
- data/.rspec +2 -0
- data/Gemfile +2 -0
- data/LICENSE +13 -0
- data/README.md +522 -0
- data/Rakefile +6 -0
- data/bin/poefy +205 -0
- data/data/emily_dickinson.txt +9942 -0
- data/data/english_as_she_is_spoke.txt +647 -0
- data/data/shakespeare_sonnets.txt +2618 -0
- data/data/spec_test_tiny.txt +12 -0
- data/data/st_therese_of_lisieux.txt +3700 -0
- data/data/whitman_leaves.txt +17815 -0
- data/lib/poefy/conditional_satisfaction.rb +208 -0
- data/lib/poefy/database.rb +252 -0
- data/lib/poefy/generation.rb +268 -0
- data/lib/poefy/handle_error.rb +27 -0
- data/lib/poefy/poefy_gen_base.rb +124 -0
- data/lib/poefy/poetic_forms.rb +330 -0
- data/lib/poefy/self.rb +21 -0
- data/lib/poefy/string_manipulation.rb +81 -0
- data/lib/poefy/version.rb +29 -0
- data/lib/poefy.rb +49 -0
- data/poefy.gemspec +33 -0
- data/spec/poefy_spec.rb +464 -0
- data/spec/spec_helper.rb +9 -0
- metadata +175 -0
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I.
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From fairest creatures we desire increase,
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That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
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But as the riper should by time decease,
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His tender heir might bear his memory:
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But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
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Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
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Making a famine where abundance lies,
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Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
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Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
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And only herald to the gaudy spring,
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Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
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And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:
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Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
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To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
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II.
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When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
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And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
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Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
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Will be a totter'd weed of small worth held:
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Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
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Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
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To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
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Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
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How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,
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If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
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Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'
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Proving his beauty by succession thine!
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This were to be new made when thou art old,
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And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.
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III.
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Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
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Now is the time that face should form another;
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Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
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Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
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For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
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Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
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Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
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Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
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Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
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Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
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So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
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Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
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But if thou live, remembered not to be,
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Die single and thine image dies with thee.
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IV.
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Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
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Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
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Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
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And being frank she lends to those are free:
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Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
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The bounteous largess given thee to give?
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Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
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So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
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For having traffic with thy self alone,
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Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:
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Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
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What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
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Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
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Which, used, lives th' executor to be.
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V.
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Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
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The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
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Will play the tyrants to the very same
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And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
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For never-resting time leads summer on
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To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
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Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
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Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:
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Then were not summer's distillation left,
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A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
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Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
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Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:
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But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
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Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.
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VI.
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Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,
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In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
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Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
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With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed.
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That use is not forbidden usury,
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Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
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That's for thy self to breed another thee,
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Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
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Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
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If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
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Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
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Leaving thee living in posterity?
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Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair
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To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
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VII.
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Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
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Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
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Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
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Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
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And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,
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Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
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Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
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Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
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But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
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Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
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The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
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From his low tract, and look another way:
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So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon
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Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.
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VIII.
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Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
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Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
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Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
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Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
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If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
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By unions married, do offend thine ear,
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They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
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In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
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Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
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Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
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Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
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Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
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Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
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Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'
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IX.
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Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
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That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
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Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
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The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
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The world will be thy widow and still weep
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That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
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When every private widow well may keep
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By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
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Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
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Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
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But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
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And kept unused the user so destroys it.
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No love toward others in that bosom sits
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That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
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X.
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For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any,
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Who for thy self art so unprovident.
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Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
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But that thou none lov'st is most evident:
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For thou art so possessed with murderous hate,
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That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,
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Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
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Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
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O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:
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Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
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Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
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Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
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Make thee another self for love of me,
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That beauty still may live in thine or thee.
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XI.
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As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st
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In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
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And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,
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Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
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Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;
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Without this folly, age, and cold decay:
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If all were minded so, the times should cease
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And threescore year would make the world away.
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Let those whom nature hath not made for store,
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Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:
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Look whom she best endowed, she gave the more;
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Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
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She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,
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Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
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XII.
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When I do count the clock that tells the time,
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And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
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When I behold the violet past prime,
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And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;
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When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
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Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
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And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
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Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
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Then of thy beauty do I question make,
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That thou among the wastes of time must go,
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Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
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And die as fast as they see others grow;
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And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
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Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
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XIII.
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O! that you were your self; but, love, you are
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No longer yours, than you your self here live:
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Against this coming end you should prepare,
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And your sweet semblance to some other give:
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So should that beauty which you hold in lease
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Find no determination; then you were
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Yourself again, after yourself's decease,
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When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
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Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
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Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
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Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
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And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
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O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,
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You had a father: let your son say so.
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XIV.
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Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;
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And yet methinks I have Astronomy,
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But not to tell of good or evil luck,
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Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
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Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
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Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
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Or say with princes if it shall go well
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By oft predict that I in heaven find:
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But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
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And, constant stars, in them I read such art
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As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
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If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert;
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Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
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Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
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XV.
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When I consider every thing that grows
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Holds in perfection but a little moment,
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That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
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Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
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When I perceive that men as plants increase,
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Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,
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Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
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And wear their brave state out of memory;
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Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
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Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
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Where wasteful Time debateth with decay
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To change your day of youth to sullied night,
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And all in war with Time for love of you,
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As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
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XVI.
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But wherefore do not you a mightier way
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Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
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And fortify your self in your decay
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With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
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Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
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And many maiden gardens, yet unset,
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With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
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Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
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So should the lines of life that life repair,
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Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,
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Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,
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Can make you live your self in eyes of men.
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To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,
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And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.
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XVII.
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Who will believe my verse in time to come,
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If it were filled with your most high deserts?
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Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
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Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.
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If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
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And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
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The age to come would say 'This poet lies;
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Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.'
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So should my papers, yellowed with their age,
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Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
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And your true rights be termed a poet's rage
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And stretched metre of an antique song:
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But were some child of yours alive that time,
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You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.
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XVIII.
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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
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Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
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Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
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And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
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Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
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And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
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And every fair from fair sometime declines,
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By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
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But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
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Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
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Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
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When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
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So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
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So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
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XIX.
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Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
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And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
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Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
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And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
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Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,
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And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
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To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
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But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
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O! carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
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Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
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Him in thy course untainted do allow
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For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
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Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
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My love shall in my verse ever live young.
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XX.
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A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
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Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
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A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
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With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:
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An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
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Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
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A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
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Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
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And for a woman wert thou first created;
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+
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
|
336
|
+
And by addition me of thee defeated,
|
337
|
+
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
|
338
|
+
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
|
339
|
+
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.
|
340
|
+
|
341
|
+
XXI.
|
342
|
+
|
343
|
+
So is it not with me as with that Muse,
|
344
|
+
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
|
345
|
+
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
|
346
|
+
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
|
347
|
+
Making a couplement of proud compare
|
348
|
+
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
|
349
|
+
With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,
|
350
|
+
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
|
351
|
+
O! let me, true in love, but truly write,
|
352
|
+
And then believe me, my love is as fair
|
353
|
+
As any mother's child, though not so bright
|
354
|
+
As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:
|
355
|
+
Let them say more that like of hearsay well;
|
356
|
+
I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
|
357
|
+
|
358
|
+
XXII.
|
359
|
+
|
360
|
+
My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
|
361
|
+
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
|
362
|
+
But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
|
363
|
+
Then look I death my days should expiate.
|
364
|
+
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
|
365
|
+
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
|
366
|
+
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
|
367
|
+
How can I then be elder than thou art?
|
368
|
+
O! therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
|
369
|
+
As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
|
370
|
+
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
|
371
|
+
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
|
372
|
+
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
|
373
|
+
Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.
|
374
|
+
|
375
|
+
XXIII.
|
376
|
+
|
377
|
+
As an unperfect actor on the stage,
|
378
|
+
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
|
379
|
+
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
|
380
|
+
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
|
381
|
+
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
|
382
|
+
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
|
383
|
+
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
|
384
|
+
O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might.
|
385
|
+
O! let my looks be then the eloquence
|
386
|
+
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
|
387
|
+
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
|
388
|
+
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
|
389
|
+
O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:
|
390
|
+
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
|
391
|
+
|
392
|
+
XXIV.
|
393
|
+
|
394
|
+
Mine eye hath played the painter and hath steeled,
|
395
|
+
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
|
396
|
+
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
|
397
|
+
And perspective that is best painter's art.
|
398
|
+
For through the painter must you see his skill,
|
399
|
+
To find where your true image pictured lies,
|
400
|
+
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
|
401
|
+
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
|
402
|
+
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
|
403
|
+
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
|
404
|
+
Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
|
405
|
+
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
|
406
|
+
Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
|
407
|
+
They draw but what they see, know not the heart.
|
408
|
+
|
409
|
+
XXV.
|
410
|
+
|
411
|
+
Let those who are in favour with their stars
|
412
|
+
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
|
413
|
+
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars
|
414
|
+
Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
|
415
|
+
Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
|
416
|
+
But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
|
417
|
+
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
|
418
|
+
For at a frown they in their glory die.
|
419
|
+
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
|
420
|
+
After a thousand victories once foiled,
|
421
|
+
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
|
422
|
+
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
|
423
|
+
Then happy I, that love and am beloved,
|
424
|
+
Where I may not remove nor be removed.
|
425
|
+
|
426
|
+
XXVI.
|
427
|
+
|
428
|
+
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
|
429
|
+
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
|
430
|
+
To thee I send this written embassage,
|
431
|
+
To witness duty, not to show my wit:
|
432
|
+
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
|
433
|
+
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
|
434
|
+
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
|
435
|
+
In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it:
|
436
|
+
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
|
437
|
+
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
|
438
|
+
And puts apparel on my tottered loving,
|
439
|
+
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
|
440
|
+
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
|
441
|
+
Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.
|
442
|
+
|
443
|
+
XXVII.
|
444
|
+
|
445
|
+
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
|
446
|
+
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
|
447
|
+
But then begins a journey in my head
|
448
|
+
To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
|
449
|
+
For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--
|
450
|
+
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
|
451
|
+
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
|
452
|
+
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
|
453
|
+
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
|
454
|
+
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
|
455
|
+
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
|
456
|
+
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
|
457
|
+
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
|
458
|
+
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.
|
459
|
+
|
460
|
+
XXVIII.
|
461
|
+
|
462
|
+
How can I then return in happy plight,
|
463
|
+
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
|
464
|
+
When day's oppression is not eas'd by night,
|
465
|
+
But day by night and night by day oppressed,
|
466
|
+
And each, though enemies to either's reign,
|
467
|
+
Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
|
468
|
+
The one by toil, the other to complain
|
469
|
+
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
|
470
|
+
I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,
|
471
|
+
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
|
472
|
+
So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,
|
473
|
+
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.
|
474
|
+
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
|
475
|
+
And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.
|
476
|
+
|
477
|
+
XXIX.
|
478
|
+
|
479
|
+
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
|
480
|
+
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
|
481
|
+
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
|
482
|
+
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
|
483
|
+
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
|
484
|
+
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
|
485
|
+
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
|
486
|
+
With what I most enjoy contented least;
|
487
|
+
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
|
488
|
+
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
|
489
|
+
Like to the lark at break of day arising
|
490
|
+
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
|
491
|
+
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
|
492
|
+
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
|
493
|
+
|
494
|
+
XXX.
|
495
|
+
|
496
|
+
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
|
497
|
+
I summon up remembrance of things past,
|
498
|
+
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
|
499
|
+
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
|
500
|
+
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
|
501
|
+
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
|
502
|
+
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
|
503
|
+
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
|
504
|
+
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
|
505
|
+
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
|
506
|
+
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
|
507
|
+
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
|
508
|
+
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
|
509
|
+
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.
|
510
|
+
|
511
|
+
XXXI.
|
512
|
+
|
513
|
+
Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
|
514
|
+
Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
|
515
|
+
And there reigns Love, and all Love's loving parts,
|
516
|
+
And all those friends which I thought buried.
|
517
|
+
How many a holy and obsequious tear
|
518
|
+
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,
|
519
|
+
As interest of the dead, which now appear
|
520
|
+
But things removed that hidden in thee lie!
|
521
|
+
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
|
522
|
+
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
|
523
|
+
Who all their parts of me to thee did give,
|
524
|
+
That due of many now is thine alone:
|
525
|
+
Their images I loved, I view in thee,
|
526
|
+
And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.
|
527
|
+
|
528
|
+
XXXII.
|
529
|
+
|
530
|
+
If thou survive my well-contented day,
|
531
|
+
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover
|
532
|
+
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
|
533
|
+
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
|
534
|
+
Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,
|
535
|
+
And though they be outstripped by every pen,
|
536
|
+
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
|
537
|
+
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
|
538
|
+
O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
|
539
|
+
'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,
|
540
|
+
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
|
541
|
+
To march in ranks of better equipage:
|
542
|
+
But since he died and poets better prove,
|
543
|
+
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.
|
544
|
+
|
545
|
+
XXXIII.
|
546
|
+
|
547
|
+
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
|
548
|
+
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
|
549
|
+
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
|
550
|
+
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
|
551
|
+
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
|
552
|
+
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
|
553
|
+
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
|
554
|
+
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
|
555
|
+
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
|
556
|
+
With all triumphant splendour on my brow;
|
557
|
+
But out, alack, he was but one hour mine,
|
558
|
+
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
|
559
|
+
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
|
560
|
+
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.
|
561
|
+
|
562
|
+
XXXIV.
|
563
|
+
|
564
|
+
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
|
565
|
+
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
|
566
|
+
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
|
567
|
+
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
|
568
|
+
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
|
569
|
+
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
|
570
|
+
For no man well of such a salve can speak,
|
571
|
+
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
|
572
|
+
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
|
573
|
+
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
|
574
|
+
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
|
575
|
+
To him that bears the strong offence's cross.
|
576
|
+
Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
|
577
|
+
And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.
|
578
|
+
|
579
|
+
XXXV.
|
580
|
+
|
581
|
+
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
|
582
|
+
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:
|
583
|
+
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
|
584
|
+
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
|
585
|
+
All men make faults, and even I in this,
|
586
|
+
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
|
587
|
+
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
|
588
|
+
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
|
589
|
+
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,
|
590
|
+
Thy adverse party is thy advocate,
|
591
|
+
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
|
592
|
+
Such civil war is in my love and hate,
|
593
|
+
That I an accessary needs must be,
|
594
|
+
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
|
595
|
+
|
596
|
+
XXXVI.
|
597
|
+
|
598
|
+
Let me confess that we two must be twain,
|
599
|
+
Although our undivided loves are one:
|
600
|
+
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
|
601
|
+
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
|
602
|
+
In our two loves there is but one respect,
|
603
|
+
Though in our lives a separable spite,
|
604
|
+
Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
|
605
|
+
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
|
606
|
+
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
|
607
|
+
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
|
608
|
+
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
|
609
|
+
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
|
610
|
+
But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
|
611
|
+
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
|
612
|
+
|
613
|
+
XXXVII.
|
614
|
+
|
615
|
+
As a decrepit father takes delight
|
616
|
+
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
|
617
|
+
So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,
|
618
|
+
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
|
619
|
+
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
|
620
|
+
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
|
621
|
+
Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
|
622
|
+
I make my love engrafted to this store:
|
623
|
+
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
|
624
|
+
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
|
625
|
+
That I in thy abundance am sufficed,
|
626
|
+
And by a part of all thy glory live.
|
627
|
+
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:
|
628
|
+
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
|
629
|
+
|
630
|
+
XXXVIII.
|
631
|
+
|
632
|
+
How can my muse want subject to invent,
|
633
|
+
While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse
|
634
|
+
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
|
635
|
+
For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
|
636
|
+
O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me
|
637
|
+
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
|
638
|
+
For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
|
639
|
+
When thou thy self dost give invention light?
|
640
|
+
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
|
641
|
+
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;
|
642
|
+
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
|
643
|
+
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
|
644
|
+
If my slight muse do please these curious days,
|
645
|
+
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
|
646
|
+
|
647
|
+
XXXIX.
|
648
|
+
|
649
|
+
O! how thy worth with manners may I sing,
|
650
|
+
When thou art all the better part of me?
|
651
|
+
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
|
652
|
+
And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?
|
653
|
+
Even for this, let us divided live,
|
654
|
+
And our dear love lose name of single one,
|
655
|
+
That by this separation I may give
|
656
|
+
That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone.
|
657
|
+
O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,
|
658
|
+
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,
|
659
|
+
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
|
660
|
+
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,
|
661
|
+
And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
|
662
|
+
By praising him here who doth hence remain.
|
663
|
+
|
664
|
+
XL.
|
665
|
+
|
666
|
+
Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;
|
667
|
+
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
|
668
|
+
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
|
669
|
+
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
|
670
|
+
Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest,
|
671
|
+
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;
|
672
|
+
But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest
|
673
|
+
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
|
674
|
+
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
|
675
|
+
Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
|
676
|
+
And yet, love knows it is a greater grief
|
677
|
+
To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.
|
678
|
+
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
|
679
|
+
Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.
|
680
|
+
|
681
|
+
XLI.
|
682
|
+
|
683
|
+
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
|
684
|
+
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
|
685
|
+
Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,
|
686
|
+
For still temptation follows where thou art.
|
687
|
+
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
|
688
|
+
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;
|
689
|
+
And when a woman woos, what woman's son
|
690
|
+
Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?
|
691
|
+
Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
|
692
|
+
And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,
|
693
|
+
Who lead thee in their riot even there
|
694
|
+
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:
|
695
|
+
Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
|
696
|
+
Thine by thy beauty being false to me.
|
697
|
+
|
698
|
+
XLII.
|
699
|
+
|
700
|
+
That thou hast her it is not all my grief,
|
701
|
+
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
|
702
|
+
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
|
703
|
+
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
|
704
|
+
Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye:
|
705
|
+
Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her;
|
706
|
+
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
|
707
|
+
Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.
|
708
|
+
If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,
|
709
|
+
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
|
710
|
+
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
|
711
|
+
And both for my sake lay on me this cross:
|
712
|
+
But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;
|
713
|
+
Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.
|
714
|
+
|
715
|
+
XLIII.
|
716
|
+
|
717
|
+
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
|
718
|
+
For all the day they view things unrespected;
|
719
|
+
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
|
720
|
+
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
|
721
|
+
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
|
722
|
+
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
|
723
|
+
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
|
724
|
+
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
|
725
|
+
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
|
726
|
+
By looking on thee in the living day,
|
727
|
+
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
|
728
|
+
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
|
729
|
+
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
|
730
|
+
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
|
731
|
+
|
732
|
+
XLIV.
|
733
|
+
|
734
|
+
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
|
735
|
+
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
|
736
|
+
For then despite of space I would be brought,
|
737
|
+
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
|
738
|
+
No matter then although my foot did stand
|
739
|
+
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee;
|
740
|
+
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land
|
741
|
+
As soon as think the place where he would be.
|
742
|
+
But ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,
|
743
|
+
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
|
744
|
+
But that, so much of earth and water wrought,
|
745
|
+
I must attend time's leisure with my moan,
|
746
|
+
Receiving nought by elements so slow
|
747
|
+
But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.
|
748
|
+
|
749
|
+
XLV.
|
750
|
+
|
751
|
+
The other two, slight air and purging fire,
|
752
|
+
Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
|
753
|
+
The first my thought, the other my desire,
|
754
|
+
These present-absent with swift motion slide.
|
755
|
+
For when these quicker elements are gone
|
756
|
+
In tender embassy of love to thee,
|
757
|
+
My life, being made of four, with two alone
|
758
|
+
Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy;
|
759
|
+
Until life's composition be recured
|
760
|
+
By those swift messengers return'd from thee,
|
761
|
+
Who even but now come back again, assured
|
762
|
+
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:
|
763
|
+
This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,
|
764
|
+
I send them back again and straight grow sad.
|
765
|
+
|
766
|
+
XLVI.
|
767
|
+
|
768
|
+
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
|
769
|
+
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
|
770
|
+
Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
|
771
|
+
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
|
772
|
+
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
|
773
|
+
A closet never pierced with crystal eyes,
|
774
|
+
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
|
775
|
+
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
|
776
|
+
To 'cide this title is impannelled
|
777
|
+
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;
|
778
|
+
And by their verdict is determined
|
779
|
+
The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part:
|
780
|
+
As thus: mine eye's due is thine outward part,
|
781
|
+
And my heart's right, thine inward love of heart.
|
782
|
+
|
783
|
+
XLVII.
|
784
|
+
|
785
|
+
Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
|
786
|
+
And each doth good turns now unto the other:
|
787
|
+
When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
|
788
|
+
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
|
789
|
+
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,
|
790
|
+
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
|
791
|
+
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
|
792
|
+
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
|
793
|
+
So, either by thy picture or my love,
|
794
|
+
Thy self away, art present still with me;
|
795
|
+
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
|
796
|
+
And I am still with them, and they with thee;
|
797
|
+
Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
|
798
|
+
Awakes my heart, to heart's and eyes' delight.
|
799
|
+
|
800
|
+
XLVIII.
|
801
|
+
|
802
|
+
How careful was I when I took my way,
|
803
|
+
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
|
804
|
+
That to my use it might unused stay
|
805
|
+
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
|
806
|
+
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
|
807
|
+
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
|
808
|
+
Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,
|
809
|
+
Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
|
810
|
+
Thee have I not locked up in any chest,
|
811
|
+
Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,
|
812
|
+
Within the gentle closure of my breast,
|
813
|
+
From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;
|
814
|
+
And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,
|
815
|
+
For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.
|
816
|
+
|
817
|
+
XLIX.
|
818
|
+
|
819
|
+
Against that time, if ever that time come,
|
820
|
+
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
|
821
|
+
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
|
822
|
+
Called to that audit by advis'd respects;
|
823
|
+
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
|
824
|
+
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
|
825
|
+
When love, converted from the thing it was,
|
826
|
+
Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
|
827
|
+
Against that time do I ensconce me here,
|
828
|
+
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
|
829
|
+
And this my hand, against my self uprear,
|
830
|
+
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:
|
831
|
+
To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
|
832
|
+
Since why to love I can allege no cause.
|
833
|
+
|
834
|
+
L.
|
835
|
+
|
836
|
+
How heavy do I journey on the way,
|
837
|
+
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
|
838
|
+
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
|
839
|
+
'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'
|
840
|
+
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
|
841
|
+
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
|
842
|
+
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
|
843
|
+
His rider lov'd not speed being made from thee.
|
844
|
+
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
|
845
|
+
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
|
846
|
+
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
|
847
|
+
More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
|
848
|
+
For that same groan doth put this in my mind,
|
849
|
+
My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.
|
850
|
+
|
851
|
+
LI.
|
852
|
+
|
853
|
+
Thus can my love excuse the slow offence
|
854
|
+
Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:
|
855
|
+
From where thou art why should I haste me thence?
|
856
|
+
Till I return, of posting is no need.
|
857
|
+
O! what excuse will my poor beast then find,
|
858
|
+
When swift extremity can seem but slow?
|
859
|
+
Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind,
|
860
|
+
In winged speed no motion shall I know,
|
861
|
+
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace.
|
862
|
+
Therefore desire, (of perfect'st love being made)
|
863
|
+
Shall neigh, no dull flesh, in his fiery race;
|
864
|
+
But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade-
|
865
|
+
Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,
|
866
|
+
Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.
|
867
|
+
|
868
|
+
LII.
|
869
|
+
|
870
|
+
So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,
|
871
|
+
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
|
872
|
+
The which he will not every hour survey,
|
873
|
+
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
|
874
|
+
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
|
875
|
+
Since, seldom coming in the long year set,
|
876
|
+
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
|
877
|
+
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
|
878
|
+
So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
|
879
|
+
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
|
880
|
+
To make some special instant special-blest,
|
881
|
+
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.
|
882
|
+
Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
|
883
|
+
Being had, to triumph, being lacked, to hope.
|
884
|
+
|
885
|
+
LIII.
|
886
|
+
|
887
|
+
What is your substance, whereof are you made,
|
888
|
+
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
|
889
|
+
Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
|
890
|
+
And you but one, can every shadow lend.
|
891
|
+
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
|
892
|
+
Is poorly imitated after you;
|
893
|
+
On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
|
894
|
+
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
|
895
|
+
Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,
|
896
|
+
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
|
897
|
+
The other as your bounty doth appear;
|
898
|
+
And you in every blessed shape we know.
|
899
|
+
In all external grace you have some part,
|
900
|
+
But you like none, none you, for constant heart.
|
901
|
+
|
902
|
+
LIV.
|
903
|
+
|
904
|
+
O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
|
905
|
+
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
|
906
|
+
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
|
907
|
+
For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.
|
908
|
+
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye
|
909
|
+
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
|
910
|
+
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
|
911
|
+
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
|
912
|
+
But, for their virtue only is their show,
|
913
|
+
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;
|
914
|
+
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
|
915
|
+
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
|
916
|
+
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
|
917
|
+
When that shall vade, my verse distills your truth.
|
918
|
+
|
919
|
+
LV.
|
920
|
+
|
921
|
+
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
|
922
|
+
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
|
923
|
+
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
|
924
|
+
Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.
|
925
|
+
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
|
926
|
+
And broils root out the work of masonry,
|
927
|
+
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn
|
928
|
+
The living record of your memory.
|
929
|
+
'Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity
|
930
|
+
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
|
931
|
+
Even in the eyes of all posterity
|
932
|
+
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
|
933
|
+
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
|
934
|
+
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
|
935
|
+
|
936
|
+
LVI.
|
937
|
+
|
938
|
+
Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
|
939
|
+
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
|
940
|
+
Which but to-day by feeding is allayed,
|
941
|
+
To-morrow sharpened in his former might:
|
942
|
+
So, love, be thou, although to-day thou fill
|
943
|
+
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,
|
944
|
+
To-morrow see again, and do not kill
|
945
|
+
The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness.
|
946
|
+
Let this sad interim like the ocean be
|
947
|
+
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new
|
948
|
+
Come daily to the banks, that when they see
|
949
|
+
Return of love, more blest may be the view;
|
950
|
+
As call it winter, which being full of care,
|
951
|
+
Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.
|
952
|
+
|
953
|
+
LVII.
|
954
|
+
|
955
|
+
Being your slave what should I do but tend
|
956
|
+
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
|
957
|
+
I have no precious time at all to spend;
|
958
|
+
Nor services to do, till you require.
|
959
|
+
Nor dare I chide the world without end hour,
|
960
|
+
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
|
961
|
+
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
|
962
|
+
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
|
963
|
+
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
|
964
|
+
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
|
965
|
+
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
|
966
|
+
Save, where you are, how happy you make those.
|
967
|
+
So true a fool is love, that in your will,
|
968
|
+
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.
|
969
|
+
|
970
|
+
LVIII.
|
971
|
+
|
972
|
+
That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
|
973
|
+
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
|
974
|
+
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
|
975
|
+
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!
|
976
|
+
O! let me suffer, being at your beck,
|
977
|
+
The imprison'd absence of your liberty;
|
978
|
+
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
|
979
|
+
Without accusing you of injury.
|
980
|
+
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
|
981
|
+
That you yourself may privilege your time
|
982
|
+
To what you will; to you it doth belong
|
983
|
+
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
|
984
|
+
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
|
985
|
+
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.
|
986
|
+
|
987
|
+
LIX.
|
988
|
+
|
989
|
+
If there be nothing new, but that which is
|
990
|
+
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
|
991
|
+
Which labouring for invention bear amiss
|
992
|
+
The second burthen of a former child.
|
993
|
+
Oh that record could with a backward look,
|
994
|
+
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
|
995
|
+
Show me your image in some antique book,
|
996
|
+
Since mind at first in character was done,
|
997
|
+
That I might see what the old world could say
|
998
|
+
To this composed wonder of your frame;
|
999
|
+
Whether we are mended, or where better they,
|
1000
|
+
Or whether revolution be the same.
|
1001
|
+
Oh sure I am the wits of former days,
|
1002
|
+
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
|
1003
|
+
|
1004
|
+
LX.
|
1005
|
+
|
1006
|
+
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
|
1007
|
+
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
|
1008
|
+
Each changing place with that which goes before,
|
1009
|
+
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
|
1010
|
+
Nativity, once in the main of light,
|
1011
|
+
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
|
1012
|
+
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
|
1013
|
+
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
|
1014
|
+
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
|
1015
|
+
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
|
1016
|
+
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
|
1017
|
+
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
|
1018
|
+
And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
|
1019
|
+
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
|
1020
|
+
|
1021
|
+
LXI.
|
1022
|
+
|
1023
|
+
Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
|
1024
|
+
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
|
1025
|
+
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
|
1026
|
+
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
|
1027
|
+
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
|
1028
|
+
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
|
1029
|
+
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
|
1030
|
+
The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?
|
1031
|
+
O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:
|
1032
|
+
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:
|
1033
|
+
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
|
1034
|
+
To play the watchman ever for thy sake:
|
1035
|
+
For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
|
1036
|
+
From me far off, with others all too near.
|
1037
|
+
|
1038
|
+
LXII.
|
1039
|
+
|
1040
|
+
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
|
1041
|
+
And all my soul, and all my every part;
|
1042
|
+
And for this sin there is no remedy,
|
1043
|
+
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
|
1044
|
+
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
|
1045
|
+
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
|
1046
|
+
And for myself mine own worth do define,
|
1047
|
+
As I all other in all worths surmount.
|
1048
|
+
But when my glass shows me myself indeed
|
1049
|
+
Beated and chopp'd with tanned antiquity,
|
1050
|
+
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
|
1051
|
+
Self so self-loving were iniquity.
|
1052
|
+
'Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,
|
1053
|
+
Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
|
1054
|
+
|
1055
|
+
LXIII.
|
1056
|
+
|
1057
|
+
Against my love shall be as I am now,
|
1058
|
+
With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn;
|
1059
|
+
When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
|
1060
|
+
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
|
1061
|
+
Hath travelled on to age's steepy night;
|
1062
|
+
And all those beauties whereof now he's king
|
1063
|
+
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
|
1064
|
+
Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
|
1065
|
+
For such a time do I now fortify
|
1066
|
+
Against confounding age's cruel knife,
|
1067
|
+
That he shall never cut from memory
|
1068
|
+
My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:
|
1069
|
+
His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
|
1070
|
+
And they shall live, and he in them still green.
|
1071
|
+
|
1072
|
+
LXIV.
|
1073
|
+
|
1074
|
+
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
|
1075
|
+
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
|
1076
|
+
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
|
1077
|
+
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
|
1078
|
+
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
|
1079
|
+
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
|
1080
|
+
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
|
1081
|
+
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
|
1082
|
+
When I have seen such interchange of state,
|
1083
|
+
Or state itself confounded to decay;
|
1084
|
+
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
|
1085
|
+
That Time will come and take my love away.
|
1086
|
+
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
|
1087
|
+
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
|
1088
|
+
|
1089
|
+
LXV.
|
1090
|
+
|
1091
|
+
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
|
1092
|
+
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
|
1093
|
+
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
|
1094
|
+
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
|
1095
|
+
O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
|
1096
|
+
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
|
1097
|
+
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
|
1098
|
+
Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?
|
1099
|
+
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
|
1100
|
+
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
|
1101
|
+
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
|
1102
|
+
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
|
1103
|
+
O! none, unless this miracle have might,
|
1104
|
+
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
|
1105
|
+
|
1106
|
+
LXVI.
|
1107
|
+
|
1108
|
+
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
|
1109
|
+
As to behold desert a beggar born,
|
1110
|
+
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
|
1111
|
+
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
|
1112
|
+
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
|
1113
|
+
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
|
1114
|
+
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
|
1115
|
+
And strength by limping sway disabled
|
1116
|
+
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
|
1117
|
+
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
|
1118
|
+
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
|
1119
|
+
And captive good attending captain ill:
|
1120
|
+
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
|
1121
|
+
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.
|
1122
|
+
|
1123
|
+
LXVII.
|
1124
|
+
|
1125
|
+
Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,
|
1126
|
+
And with his presence grace impiety,
|
1127
|
+
That sin by him advantage should achieve,
|
1128
|
+
And lace itself with his society?
|
1129
|
+
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
|
1130
|
+
And steal dead seeming of his living hue?
|
1131
|
+
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
|
1132
|
+
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
|
1133
|
+
Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
|
1134
|
+
Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins?
|
1135
|
+
For she hath no exchequer now but his,
|
1136
|
+
And proud of many, lives upon his gains.
|
1137
|
+
O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had
|
1138
|
+
In days long since, before these last so bad.
|
1139
|
+
|
1140
|
+
LXVIII.
|
1141
|
+
|
1142
|
+
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
|
1143
|
+
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
|
1144
|
+
Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
|
1145
|
+
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
|
1146
|
+
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
|
1147
|
+
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
|
1148
|
+
To live a second life on second head;
|
1149
|
+
Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:
|
1150
|
+
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
|
1151
|
+
Without all ornament, itself and true,
|
1152
|
+
Making no summer of another's green,
|
1153
|
+
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;
|
1154
|
+
And him as for a map doth Nature store,
|
1155
|
+
To show false Art what beauty was of yore.
|
1156
|
+
|
1157
|
+
LXIX.
|
1158
|
+
|
1159
|
+
Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
|
1160
|
+
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
|
1161
|
+
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
|
1162
|
+
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
|
1163
|
+
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;
|
1164
|
+
But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,
|
1165
|
+
In other accents do this praise confound
|
1166
|
+
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
|
1167
|
+
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
|
1168
|
+
And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;
|
1169
|
+
Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
|
1170
|
+
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
|
1171
|
+
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
|
1172
|
+
The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.
|
1173
|
+
|
1174
|
+
LXX.
|
1175
|
+
|
1176
|
+
That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
|
1177
|
+
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
|
1178
|
+
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
|
1179
|
+
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
|
1180
|
+
So thou be good, slander doth but approve
|
1181
|
+
Thy worth the greater, being wooed of time;
|
1182
|
+
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
|
1183
|
+
And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
|
1184
|
+
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days
|
1185
|
+
Either not assailed, or victor being charged;
|
1186
|
+
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
|
1187
|
+
To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,
|
1188
|
+
If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,
|
1189
|
+
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.
|
1190
|
+
|
1191
|
+
LXXI.
|
1192
|
+
|
1193
|
+
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
|
1194
|
+
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
|
1195
|
+
Give warning to the world that I am fled
|
1196
|
+
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
|
1197
|
+
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
|
1198
|
+
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
|
1199
|
+
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
|
1200
|
+
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
|
1201
|
+
O! if, I say, you look upon this verse,
|
1202
|
+
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
|
1203
|
+
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
|
1204
|
+
But let your love even with my life decay;
|
1205
|
+
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
|
1206
|
+
And mock you with me after I am gone.
|
1207
|
+
|
1208
|
+
LXXII.
|
1209
|
+
|
1210
|
+
O! lest the world should task you to recite
|
1211
|
+
What merit lived in me, that you should love
|
1212
|
+
After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,
|
1213
|
+
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
|
1214
|
+
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
|
1215
|
+
To do more for me than mine own desert,
|
1216
|
+
And hang more praise upon deceased I
|
1217
|
+
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
|
1218
|
+
O! lest your true love may seem false in this
|
1219
|
+
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
|
1220
|
+
My name be buried where my body is,
|
1221
|
+
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
|
1222
|
+
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
|
1223
|
+
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
|
1224
|
+
|
1225
|
+
LXXIII.
|
1226
|
+
|
1227
|
+
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
|
1228
|
+
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
|
1229
|
+
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
|
1230
|
+
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
|
1231
|
+
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
|
1232
|
+
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
|
1233
|
+
Which by and by black night doth take away,
|
1234
|
+
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
|
1235
|
+
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
|
1236
|
+
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
|
1237
|
+
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
|
1238
|
+
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
|
1239
|
+
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
|
1240
|
+
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
|
1241
|
+
|
1242
|
+
LXXIV.
|
1243
|
+
|
1244
|
+
But be contented when that fell arrest
|
1245
|
+
Without all bail shall carry me away,
|
1246
|
+
My life hath in this line some interest,
|
1247
|
+
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
|
1248
|
+
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
|
1249
|
+
The very part was consecrate to thee:
|
1250
|
+
The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
|
1251
|
+
My spirit is thine, the better part of me:
|
1252
|
+
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
|
1253
|
+
The prey of worms, my body being dead;
|
1254
|
+
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
|
1255
|
+
Too base of thee to be remembered.
|
1256
|
+
The worth of that is that which it contains,
|
1257
|
+
And that is this, and this with thee remains.
|
1258
|
+
|
1259
|
+
LXXV.
|
1260
|
+
|
1261
|
+
So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
|
1262
|
+
Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
|
1263
|
+
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
|
1264
|
+
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
|
1265
|
+
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
|
1266
|
+
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
|
1267
|
+
Now counting best to be with you alone,
|
1268
|
+
Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:
|
1269
|
+
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
|
1270
|
+
And by and by clean starved for a look;
|
1271
|
+
Possessing or pursuing no delight
|
1272
|
+
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
|
1273
|
+
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
|
1274
|
+
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.
|
1275
|
+
|
1276
|
+
LXXVI.
|
1277
|
+
|
1278
|
+
Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
|
1279
|
+
So far from variation or quick change?
|
1280
|
+
Why with the time do I not glance aside
|
1281
|
+
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
|
1282
|
+
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
|
1283
|
+
And keep invention in a noted weed,
|
1284
|
+
That every word doth almost tell my name,
|
1285
|
+
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
|
1286
|
+
O! know sweet love I always write of you,
|
1287
|
+
And you and love are still my argument;
|
1288
|
+
So all my best is dressing old words new,
|
1289
|
+
Spending again what is already spent:
|
1290
|
+
For as the sun is daily new and old,
|
1291
|
+
So is my love still telling what is told.
|
1292
|
+
|
1293
|
+
LXXVII.
|
1294
|
+
|
1295
|
+
Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
|
1296
|
+
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
|
1297
|
+
The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
|
1298
|
+
And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.
|
1299
|
+
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
|
1300
|
+
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
|
1301
|
+
Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know
|
1302
|
+
Time's thievish progress to eternity.
|
1303
|
+
Look what thy memory cannot contain,
|
1304
|
+
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
|
1305
|
+
Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
|
1306
|
+
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
|
1307
|
+
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
|
1308
|
+
Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.
|
1309
|
+
|
1310
|
+
LXXVIII.
|
1311
|
+
|
1312
|
+
So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,
|
1313
|
+
And found such fair assistance in my verse
|
1314
|
+
As every alien pen hath got my use
|
1315
|
+
And under thee their poesy disperse.
|
1316
|
+
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing
|
1317
|
+
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
|
1318
|
+
Have added feathers to the learned's wing
|
1319
|
+
And given grace a double majesty.
|
1320
|
+
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
|
1321
|
+
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:
|
1322
|
+
In others' works thou dost but mend the style,
|
1323
|
+
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
|
1324
|
+
But thou art all my art, and dost advance
|
1325
|
+
As high as learning, my rude ignorance.
|
1326
|
+
|
1327
|
+
LXXIX.
|
1328
|
+
|
1329
|
+
Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
|
1330
|
+
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;
|
1331
|
+
But now my gracious numbers are decayed,
|
1332
|
+
And my sick Muse doth give an other place.
|
1333
|
+
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument
|
1334
|
+
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;
|
1335
|
+
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
|
1336
|
+
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.
|
1337
|
+
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word
|
1338
|
+
From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,
|
1339
|
+
And found it in thy cheek: he can afford
|
1340
|
+
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.
|
1341
|
+
Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
|
1342
|
+
Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.
|
1343
|
+
|
1344
|
+
LXXX.
|
1345
|
+
|
1346
|
+
O! how I faint when I of you do write,
|
1347
|
+
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
|
1348
|
+
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
|
1349
|
+
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
|
1350
|
+
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
|
1351
|
+
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
|
1352
|
+
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
|
1353
|
+
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
|
1354
|
+
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
|
1355
|
+
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
|
1356
|
+
Or, being wracked, I am a worthless boat,
|
1357
|
+
He of tall building, and of goodly pride:
|
1358
|
+
Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
|
1359
|
+
The worst was this, my love was my decay.
|
1360
|
+
|
1361
|
+
LXXXI.
|
1362
|
+
|
1363
|
+
Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
|
1364
|
+
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
|
1365
|
+
From hence your memory death cannot take,
|
1366
|
+
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
|
1367
|
+
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
|
1368
|
+
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
|
1369
|
+
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
|
1370
|
+
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
|
1371
|
+
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
|
1372
|
+
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;
|
1373
|
+
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
|
1374
|
+
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
|
1375
|
+
You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen,
|
1376
|
+
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
|
1377
|
+
|
1378
|
+
LXXXII.
|
1379
|
+
|
1380
|
+
I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,
|
1381
|
+
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
|
1382
|
+
The dedicated words which writers use
|
1383
|
+
Of their fair subject, blessing every book.
|
1384
|
+
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
|
1385
|
+
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;
|
1386
|
+
And therefore art enforced to seek anew
|
1387
|
+
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.
|
1388
|
+
And do so, love; yet when they have devised,
|
1389
|
+
What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
|
1390
|
+
Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized
|
1391
|
+
In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;
|
1392
|
+
And their gross painting might be better used
|
1393
|
+
Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused.
|
1394
|
+
|
1395
|
+
LXXXIII.
|
1396
|
+
|
1397
|
+
I never saw that you did painting need,
|
1398
|
+
And therefore to your fair no painting set;
|
1399
|
+
I found, or thought I found, you did exceed
|
1400
|
+
The barren tender of a poet's debt:
|
1401
|
+
And therefore have I slept in your report,
|
1402
|
+
That you yourself, being extant, well might show
|
1403
|
+
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
|
1404
|
+
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
|
1405
|
+
This silence for my sin you did impute,
|
1406
|
+
Which shall be most my glory being dumb;
|
1407
|
+
For I impair not beauty being mute,
|
1408
|
+
When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
|
1409
|
+
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
|
1410
|
+
Than both your poets can in praise devise.
|
1411
|
+
|
1412
|
+
LXXXIV.
|
1413
|
+
|
1414
|
+
Who is it that says most, which can say more,
|
1415
|
+
Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you,
|
1416
|
+
In whose confine immured is the store
|
1417
|
+
Which should example where your equal grew?
|
1418
|
+
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
|
1419
|
+
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
|
1420
|
+
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
|
1421
|
+
That you are you, so dignifies his story.
|
1422
|
+
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
|
1423
|
+
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
|
1424
|
+
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
|
1425
|
+
Making his style admired every where.
|
1426
|
+
You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
|
1427
|
+
Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.
|
1428
|
+
|
1429
|
+
LXXXV.
|
1430
|
+
|
1431
|
+
My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
|
1432
|
+
While comments of your praise richly compiled,
|
1433
|
+
Reserve thy character with golden quill,
|
1434
|
+
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
|
1435
|
+
I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,
|
1436
|
+
And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen'
|
1437
|
+
To every hymn that able spirit affords,
|
1438
|
+
In polished form of well-refined pen.
|
1439
|
+
Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,'
|
1440
|
+
And to the most of praise add something more;
|
1441
|
+
But that is in my thought, whose love to you,
|
1442
|
+
Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.
|
1443
|
+
Then others, for the breath of words respect,
|
1444
|
+
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.
|
1445
|
+
|
1446
|
+
LXXXVI.
|
1447
|
+
|
1448
|
+
Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
|
1449
|
+
Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
|
1450
|
+
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
|
1451
|
+
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
|
1452
|
+
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
|
1453
|
+
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
|
1454
|
+
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
|
1455
|
+
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
|
1456
|
+
He, nor that affable familiar ghost
|
1457
|
+
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
|
1458
|
+
As victors of my silence cannot boast;
|
1459
|
+
I was not sick of any fear from thence:
|
1460
|
+
But when your countenance filled up his line,
|
1461
|
+
Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.
|
1462
|
+
|
1463
|
+
LXXXVII.
|
1464
|
+
|
1465
|
+
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
|
1466
|
+
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,
|
1467
|
+
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
|
1468
|
+
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
|
1469
|
+
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
|
1470
|
+
And for that riches where is my deserving?
|
1471
|
+
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
|
1472
|
+
And so my patent back again is swerving.
|
1473
|
+
Thy self thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing,
|
1474
|
+
Or me to whom thou gav'st it else mistaking;
|
1475
|
+
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
|
1476
|
+
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
|
1477
|
+
Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
|
1478
|
+
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
|
1479
|
+
|
1480
|
+
LXXXVIII.
|
1481
|
+
|
1482
|
+
When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
|
1483
|
+
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
|
1484
|
+
Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight,
|
1485
|
+
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.
|
1486
|
+
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
|
1487
|
+
Upon thy part I can set down a story
|
1488
|
+
Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted;
|
1489
|
+
That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:
|
1490
|
+
And I by this will be a gainer too;
|
1491
|
+
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
|
1492
|
+
The injuries that to myself I do,
|
1493
|
+
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
|
1494
|
+
Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
|
1495
|
+
That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.
|
1496
|
+
|
1497
|
+
LXXXIX.
|
1498
|
+
|
1499
|
+
Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
|
1500
|
+
And I will comment upon that offence:
|
1501
|
+
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,
|
1502
|
+
Against thy reasons making no defence.
|
1503
|
+
Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill,
|
1504
|
+
To set a form upon desired change,
|
1505
|
+
As I'll myself disgrace; knowing thy will,
|
1506
|
+
I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange;
|
1507
|
+
Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue
|
1508
|
+
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,
|
1509
|
+
Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong,
|
1510
|
+
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
|
1511
|
+
For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,
|
1512
|
+
For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.
|
1513
|
+
|
1514
|
+
XC.
|
1515
|
+
|
1516
|
+
Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
|
1517
|
+
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
|
1518
|
+
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
|
1519
|
+
And do not drop in for an after-loss:
|
1520
|
+
Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,
|
1521
|
+
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe;
|
1522
|
+
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
|
1523
|
+
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
|
1524
|
+
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
|
1525
|
+
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
|
1526
|
+
But in the onset come: so shall I taste
|
1527
|
+
At first the very worst of fortune's might;
|
1528
|
+
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
|
1529
|
+
Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.
|
1530
|
+
|
1531
|
+
XCI.
|
1532
|
+
|
1533
|
+
Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
|
1534
|
+
Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,
|
1535
|
+
Some in their garments though new-fangled ill;
|
1536
|
+
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
|
1537
|
+
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
|
1538
|
+
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:
|
1539
|
+
But these particulars are not my measure,
|
1540
|
+
All these I better in one general best.
|
1541
|
+
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
|
1542
|
+
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,
|
1543
|
+
Of more delight than hawks and horses be;
|
1544
|
+
And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:
|
1545
|
+
Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take
|
1546
|
+
All this away, and me most wretched make.
|
1547
|
+
|
1548
|
+
XCII.
|
1549
|
+
|
1550
|
+
But do thy worst to steal thyself away,
|
1551
|
+
For term of life thou art assured mine;
|
1552
|
+
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
|
1553
|
+
For it depends upon that love of thine.
|
1554
|
+
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
|
1555
|
+
When in the least of them my life hath end.
|
1556
|
+
I see a better state to me belongs
|
1557
|
+
Than that which on thy humour doth depend:
|
1558
|
+
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
|
1559
|
+
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie.
|
1560
|
+
O what a happy title do I find,
|
1561
|
+
Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
|
1562
|
+
But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?
|
1563
|
+
Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.
|
1564
|
+
|
1565
|
+
XCIII.
|
1566
|
+
|
1567
|
+
So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
|
1568
|
+
Like a deceived husband; so love's face
|
1569
|
+
May still seem love to me, though altered new;
|
1570
|
+
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:
|
1571
|
+
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
|
1572
|
+
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.
|
1573
|
+
In many's looks, the false heart's history
|
1574
|
+
Is writ in moods, and frowns, and wrinkles strange.
|
1575
|
+
But heaven in thy creation did decree
|
1576
|
+
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;
|
1577
|
+
Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,
|
1578
|
+
Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.
|
1579
|
+
How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,
|
1580
|
+
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!
|
1581
|
+
|
1582
|
+
XCIV.
|
1583
|
+
|
1584
|
+
They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
|
1585
|
+
That do not do the thing they most do show,
|
1586
|
+
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
|
1587
|
+
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
|
1588
|
+
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
|
1589
|
+
And husband nature's riches from expense;
|
1590
|
+
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
|
1591
|
+
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
|
1592
|
+
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
|
1593
|
+
Though to itself, it only live and die,
|
1594
|
+
But if that flower with base infection meet,
|
1595
|
+
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
|
1596
|
+
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
|
1597
|
+
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.
|
1598
|
+
|
1599
|
+
XCV.
|
1600
|
+
|
1601
|
+
How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
|
1602
|
+
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
|
1603
|
+
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
|
1604
|
+
O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.
|
1605
|
+
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
|
1606
|
+
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
|
1607
|
+
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;
|
1608
|
+
Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
|
1609
|
+
O! what a mansion have those vices got
|
1610
|
+
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
|
1611
|
+
Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot
|
1612
|
+
And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!
|
1613
|
+
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
|
1614
|
+
The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.
|
1615
|
+
|
1616
|
+
XCVI.
|
1617
|
+
|
1618
|
+
Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
|
1619
|
+
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
|
1620
|
+
Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less:
|
1621
|
+
Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.
|
1622
|
+
As on the finger of a throned queen
|
1623
|
+
The basest jewel will be well esteem'd,
|
1624
|
+
So are those errors that in thee are seen
|
1625
|
+
To truths translated, and for true things deem'd.
|
1626
|
+
How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
|
1627
|
+
If like a lamb he could his looks translate!
|
1628
|
+
How many gazers mightst thou lead away,
|
1629
|
+
If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!
|
1630
|
+
But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
|
1631
|
+
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
|
1632
|
+
|
1633
|
+
XCVII.
|
1634
|
+
|
1635
|
+
How like a winter hath my absence been
|
1636
|
+
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
|
1637
|
+
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
|
1638
|
+
What old December's bareness everywhere!
|
1639
|
+
And yet this time removed was summer's time;
|
1640
|
+
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
|
1641
|
+
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
|
1642
|
+
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:
|
1643
|
+
Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
|
1644
|
+
But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit;
|
1645
|
+
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
|
1646
|
+
And, thou away, the very birds are mute:
|
1647
|
+
Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,
|
1648
|
+
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.
|
1649
|
+
|
1650
|
+
XCVIII.
|
1651
|
+
|
1652
|
+
From you have I been absent in the spring,
|
1653
|
+
When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim,
|
1654
|
+
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
|
1655
|
+
That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him.
|
1656
|
+
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
|
1657
|
+
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
|
1658
|
+
Could make me any summer's story tell,
|
1659
|
+
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
|
1660
|
+
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
|
1661
|
+
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
|
1662
|
+
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
|
1663
|
+
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
|
1664
|
+
Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,
|
1665
|
+
As with your shadow I with these did play.
|
1666
|
+
|
1667
|
+
XCIX.
|
1668
|
+
|
1669
|
+
The forward violet thus did I chide:
|
1670
|
+
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
|
1671
|
+
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
|
1672
|
+
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
|
1673
|
+
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd.
|
1674
|
+
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
|
1675
|
+
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;
|
1676
|
+
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
|
1677
|
+
One blushing shame, another white despair;
|
1678
|
+
A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both,
|
1679
|
+
And to his robbery had annexed thy breath;
|
1680
|
+
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
|
1681
|
+
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
|
1682
|
+
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
|
1683
|
+
But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.
|
1684
|
+
|
1685
|
+
C.
|
1686
|
+
|
1687
|
+
Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,
|
1688
|
+
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
|
1689
|
+
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
|
1690
|
+
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
|
1691
|
+
Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
|
1692
|
+
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
|
1693
|
+
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
|
1694
|
+
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
|
1695
|
+
Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
|
1696
|
+
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
|
1697
|
+
If any, be a satire to decay,
|
1698
|
+
And make Time's spoils despised every where.
|
1699
|
+
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
|
1700
|
+
So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.
|
1701
|
+
|
1702
|
+
CI.
|
1703
|
+
|
1704
|
+
O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
|
1705
|
+
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
|
1706
|
+
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
|
1707
|
+
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
|
1708
|
+
Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
|
1709
|
+
'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fixed;
|
1710
|
+
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
|
1711
|
+
But best is best, if never intermixed'?
|
1712
|
+
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
|
1713
|
+
Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee
|
1714
|
+
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
|
1715
|
+
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
|
1716
|
+
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
|
1717
|
+
To make him seem, long hence, as he shows now.
|
1718
|
+
|
1719
|
+
CII.
|
1720
|
+
|
1721
|
+
My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming;
|
1722
|
+
I love not less, though less the show appear;
|
1723
|
+
That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,
|
1724
|
+
The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
|
1725
|
+
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
|
1726
|
+
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
|
1727
|
+
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
|
1728
|
+
And stops his pipe in growth of riper days:
|
1729
|
+
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
|
1730
|
+
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
|
1731
|
+
But that wild music burthens every bough,
|
1732
|
+
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
|
1733
|
+
Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:
|
1734
|
+
Because I would not dull you with my song.
|
1735
|
+
|
1736
|
+
CIII.
|
1737
|
+
|
1738
|
+
Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,
|
1739
|
+
That having such a scope to show her pride,
|
1740
|
+
The argument all bare is of more worth
|
1741
|
+
Than when it hath my added praise beside!
|
1742
|
+
O! blame me not, if I no more can write!
|
1743
|
+
Look in your glass, and there appears a face
|
1744
|
+
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
|
1745
|
+
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
|
1746
|
+
Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
|
1747
|
+
To mar the subject that before was well?
|
1748
|
+
For to no other pass my verses tend
|
1749
|
+
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;
|
1750
|
+
And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,
|
1751
|
+
Your own glass shows you when you look in it.
|
1752
|
+
|
1753
|
+
CIV.
|
1754
|
+
|
1755
|
+
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
|
1756
|
+
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
|
1757
|
+
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
|
1758
|
+
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
|
1759
|
+
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,
|
1760
|
+
In process of the seasons have I seen,
|
1761
|
+
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
|
1762
|
+
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
|
1763
|
+
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,
|
1764
|
+
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
|
1765
|
+
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
|
1766
|
+
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
|
1767
|
+
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:
|
1768
|
+
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
|
1769
|
+
|
1770
|
+
CV.
|
1771
|
+
|
1772
|
+
Let not my love be called idolatry,
|
1773
|
+
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
|
1774
|
+
Since all alike my songs and praises be
|
1775
|
+
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
|
1776
|
+
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
|
1777
|
+
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
|
1778
|
+
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
|
1779
|
+
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
|
1780
|
+
Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,
|
1781
|
+
Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words;
|
1782
|
+
And in this change is my invention spent,
|
1783
|
+
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
|
1784
|
+
Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone,
|
1785
|
+
Which three till now, never kept seat in one.
|
1786
|
+
|
1787
|
+
CVI.
|
1788
|
+
|
1789
|
+
When in the chronicle of wasted time
|
1790
|
+
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
|
1791
|
+
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
|
1792
|
+
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
|
1793
|
+
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
|
1794
|
+
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
|
1795
|
+
I see their antique pen would have expressed
|
1796
|
+
Even such a beauty as you master now.
|
1797
|
+
So all their praises are but prophecies
|
1798
|
+
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
|
1799
|
+
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
|
1800
|
+
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
|
1801
|
+
For we, which now behold these present days,
|
1802
|
+
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
|
1803
|
+
|
1804
|
+
CVII.
|
1805
|
+
|
1806
|
+
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
|
1807
|
+
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
|
1808
|
+
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
|
1809
|
+
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
|
1810
|
+
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
|
1811
|
+
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
|
1812
|
+
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
|
1813
|
+
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
|
1814
|
+
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
|
1815
|
+
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
|
1816
|
+
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
|
1817
|
+
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:
|
1818
|
+
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
|
1819
|
+
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.
|
1820
|
+
|
1821
|
+
CVIII.
|
1822
|
+
|
1823
|
+
What's in the brain that ink may character
|
1824
|
+
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
|
1825
|
+
What's new to speak, what now to register,
|
1826
|
+
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
|
1827
|
+
Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
|
1828
|
+
I must each day say o'er the very same;
|
1829
|
+
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
|
1830
|
+
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
|
1831
|
+
So that eternal love in love's fresh case,
|
1832
|
+
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
|
1833
|
+
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
|
1834
|
+
But makes antiquity for aye his page;
|
1835
|
+
Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
|
1836
|
+
Where time and outward form would show it dead.
|
1837
|
+
|
1838
|
+
CIX.
|
1839
|
+
|
1840
|
+
O! never say that I was false of heart,
|
1841
|
+
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,
|
1842
|
+
As easy might I from my self depart
|
1843
|
+
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
|
1844
|
+
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
|
1845
|
+
Like him that travels, I return again;
|
1846
|
+
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
|
1847
|
+
So that myself bring water for my stain.
|
1848
|
+
Never believe though in my nature reigned,
|
1849
|
+
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
|
1850
|
+
That it could so preposterously be stained,
|
1851
|
+
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
|
1852
|
+
For nothing this wide universe I call,
|
1853
|
+
Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.
|
1854
|
+
|
1855
|
+
CX.
|
1856
|
+
|
1857
|
+
Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
|
1858
|
+
And made my self a motley to the view,
|
1859
|
+
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
|
1860
|
+
Made old offences of affections new;
|
1861
|
+
Most true it is, that I have looked on truth
|
1862
|
+
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
|
1863
|
+
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
|
1864
|
+
And worse essays proved thee my best of love.
|
1865
|
+
Now all is done, have what shall have no end:
|
1866
|
+
Mine appetite I never more will grind
|
1867
|
+
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
|
1868
|
+
A god in love, to whom I am confined.
|
1869
|
+
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
|
1870
|
+
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.
|
1871
|
+
|
1872
|
+
CXI.
|
1873
|
+
|
1874
|
+
O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
|
1875
|
+
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
|
1876
|
+
That did not better for my life provide
|
1877
|
+
Than public means which public manners breeds.
|
1878
|
+
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
|
1879
|
+
And almost thence my nature is subdued
|
1880
|
+
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
|
1881
|
+
Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed;
|
1882
|
+
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
|
1883
|
+
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;
|
1884
|
+
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
|
1885
|
+
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
|
1886
|
+
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
|
1887
|
+
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
|
1888
|
+
|
1889
|
+
CXII.
|
1890
|
+
|
1891
|
+
Your love and pity doth the impression fill,
|
1892
|
+
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;
|
1893
|
+
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
|
1894
|
+
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
|
1895
|
+
You are my all-the-world, and I must strive
|
1896
|
+
To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
|
1897
|
+
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
|
1898
|
+
That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.
|
1899
|
+
In so profound abysm I throw all care
|
1900
|
+
Of others' voices, that my adder's sense
|
1901
|
+
To critic and to flatterer stopped are.
|
1902
|
+
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:
|
1903
|
+
You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
|
1904
|
+
That all the world besides methinks y'are dead.
|
1905
|
+
|
1906
|
+
CXIII.
|
1907
|
+
|
1908
|
+
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
|
1909
|
+
And that which governs me to go about
|
1910
|
+
Doth part his function and is partly blind,
|
1911
|
+
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
|
1912
|
+
For it no form delivers to the heart
|
1913
|
+
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch:
|
1914
|
+
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
|
1915
|
+
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
|
1916
|
+
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
|
1917
|
+
The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
|
1918
|
+
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
|
1919
|
+
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
|
1920
|
+
Incapable of more, replete with you,
|
1921
|
+
My most true mind thus maketh mine eye untrue.
|
1922
|
+
|
1923
|
+
CXIV.
|
1924
|
+
|
1925
|
+
Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you,
|
1926
|
+
Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?
|
1927
|
+
Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,
|
1928
|
+
And that your love taught it this alchemy,
|
1929
|
+
To make of monsters and things indigest
|
1930
|
+
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
|
1931
|
+
Creating every bad a perfect best,
|
1932
|
+
As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
|
1933
|
+
O! 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,
|
1934
|
+
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:
|
1935
|
+
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,
|
1936
|
+
And to his palate doth prepare the cup:
|
1937
|
+
If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin
|
1938
|
+
That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
|
1939
|
+
|
1940
|
+
CXV.
|
1941
|
+
|
1942
|
+
Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
|
1943
|
+
Even those that said I could not love you dearer:
|
1944
|
+
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
|
1945
|
+
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
|
1946
|
+
But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents
|
1947
|
+
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
|
1948
|
+
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
|
1949
|
+
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
|
1950
|
+
Alas! why, fearing of Time's tyranny,
|
1951
|
+
Might I not then say, 'Now I love you best,'
|
1952
|
+
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
|
1953
|
+
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
|
1954
|
+
Love is a babe, then might I not say so,
|
1955
|
+
To give full growth to that which still doth grow?
|
1956
|
+
|
1957
|
+
CXVI.
|
1958
|
+
|
1959
|
+
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
|
1960
|
+
Admit impediments. Love is not love
|
1961
|
+
Which alters when it alteration finds,
|
1962
|
+
Or bends with the remover to remove:
|
1963
|
+
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
|
1964
|
+
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
|
1965
|
+
It is the star to every wandering bark,
|
1966
|
+
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
|
1967
|
+
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
|
1968
|
+
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
|
1969
|
+
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
|
1970
|
+
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
|
1971
|
+
If this be error and upon me proved,
|
1972
|
+
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
|
1973
|
+
|
1974
|
+
CXVII.
|
1975
|
+
|
1976
|
+
Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,
|
1977
|
+
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
|
1978
|
+
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
|
1979
|
+
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;
|
1980
|
+
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
|
1981
|
+
And given to time your own dear-purchased right;
|
1982
|
+
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
|
1983
|
+
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
|
1984
|
+
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
|
1985
|
+
And on just proof surmise accumulate;
|
1986
|
+
Bring me within the level of your frown,
|
1987
|
+
But shoot not at me in your wakened hate;
|
1988
|
+
Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
|
1989
|
+
The constancy and virtue of your love.
|
1990
|
+
|
1991
|
+
CXVIII.
|
1992
|
+
|
1993
|
+
Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
|
1994
|
+
With eager compounds we our palate urge;
|
1995
|
+
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
|
1996
|
+
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;
|
1997
|
+
Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,
|
1998
|
+
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
|
1999
|
+
And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
|
2000
|
+
To be diseased, ere that there was true needing.
|
2001
|
+
Thus policy in love, to anticipate
|
2002
|
+
The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
|
2003
|
+
And brought to medicine a healthful state
|
2004
|
+
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured;
|
2005
|
+
But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
|
2006
|
+
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.
|
2007
|
+
|
2008
|
+
CXIX.
|
2009
|
+
|
2010
|
+
What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
|
2011
|
+
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
|
2012
|
+
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
|
2013
|
+
Still losing when I saw myself to win!
|
2014
|
+
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
|
2015
|
+
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!
|
2016
|
+
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,
|
2017
|
+
In the distraction of this madding fever!
|
2018
|
+
O benefit of ill! now I find true
|
2019
|
+
That better is by evil still made better;
|
2020
|
+
And ruined love, when it is built anew,
|
2021
|
+
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
|
2022
|
+
So I return rebuked to my content,
|
2023
|
+
And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.
|
2024
|
+
|
2025
|
+
CXX.
|
2026
|
+
|
2027
|
+
That you were once unkind befriends me now,
|
2028
|
+
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
|
2029
|
+
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
|
2030
|
+
Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.
|
2031
|
+
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
|
2032
|
+
As I by yours, you've passed a hell of time;
|
2033
|
+
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
|
2034
|
+
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
|
2035
|
+
O! that our night of woe might have remembered
|
2036
|
+
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
|
2037
|
+
And soon to you, as you to me, then tendered
|
2038
|
+
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
|
2039
|
+
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
|
2040
|
+
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
|
2041
|
+
|
2042
|
+
CXXI.
|
2043
|
+
|
2044
|
+
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
|
2045
|
+
When not to be receives reproach of being;
|
2046
|
+
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
|
2047
|
+
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
|
2048
|
+
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
|
2049
|
+
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
|
2050
|
+
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
|
2051
|
+
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
|
2052
|
+
No, I am that I am, and they that level
|
2053
|
+
At my abuses reckon up their own:
|
2054
|
+
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
|
2055
|
+
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
|
2056
|
+
Unless this general evil they maintain,
|
2057
|
+
All men are bad and in their badness reign.
|
2058
|
+
|
2059
|
+
CXXII.
|
2060
|
+
|
2061
|
+
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
|
2062
|
+
Full charactered with lasting memory,
|
2063
|
+
Which shall above that idle rank remain,
|
2064
|
+
Beyond all date, even to eternity:
|
2065
|
+
Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
|
2066
|
+
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
|
2067
|
+
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
|
2068
|
+
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
|
2069
|
+
That poor retention could not so much hold,
|
2070
|
+
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
|
2071
|
+
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
|
2072
|
+
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
|
2073
|
+
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
|
2074
|
+
Were to import forgetfulness in me.
|
2075
|
+
|
2076
|
+
CXXIII.
|
2077
|
+
|
2078
|
+
No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
|
2079
|
+
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
|
2080
|
+
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
|
2081
|
+
They are but dressings of a former sight.
|
2082
|
+
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
|
2083
|
+
What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
|
2084
|
+
And rather make them born to our desire
|
2085
|
+
Than think that we before have heard them told.
|
2086
|
+
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
|
2087
|
+
Not wondering at the present nor the past,
|
2088
|
+
For thy records and what we see doth lie,
|
2089
|
+
Made more or less by thy continual haste.
|
2090
|
+
This I do vow and this shall ever be;
|
2091
|
+
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.
|
2092
|
+
|
2093
|
+
CXXIV.
|
2094
|
+
|
2095
|
+
If my dear love were but the child of state,
|
2096
|
+
It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,
|
2097
|
+
As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,
|
2098
|
+
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
|
2099
|
+
No, it was builded far from accident;
|
2100
|
+
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
|
2101
|
+
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
|
2102
|
+
Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:
|
2103
|
+
It fears not policy, that heretic,
|
2104
|
+
Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,
|
2105
|
+
But all alone stands hugely politic,
|
2106
|
+
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
|
2107
|
+
To this I witness call the fools of time,
|
2108
|
+
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
|
2109
|
+
|
2110
|
+
CXXV.
|
2111
|
+
|
2112
|
+
Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
|
2113
|
+
With my extern the outward honouring,
|
2114
|
+
Or laid great bases for eternity,
|
2115
|
+
Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
|
2116
|
+
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
|
2117
|
+
Lose all and more by paying too much rent
|
2118
|
+
For compound sweet, forgoing simple savour,
|
2119
|
+
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
|
2120
|
+
No; let me be obsequious in thy heart,
|
2121
|
+
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
|
2122
|
+
Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
|
2123
|
+
But mutual render, only me for thee.
|
2124
|
+
Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul
|
2125
|
+
When most impeached stands least in thy control.
|
2126
|
+
|
2127
|
+
CXXVI.
|
2128
|
+
|
2129
|
+
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
|
2130
|
+
Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;
|
2131
|
+
Who hast by waning grown, and therein showest
|
2132
|
+
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self growest.
|
2133
|
+
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
|
2134
|
+
As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,
|
2135
|
+
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
|
2136
|
+
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
|
2137
|
+
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
|
2138
|
+
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
|
2139
|
+
Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
|
2140
|
+
And her quietus is to render thee.
|
2141
|
+
( )
|
2142
|
+
( )
|
2143
|
+
|
2144
|
+
CXXVII.
|
2145
|
+
|
2146
|
+
In the old age black was not counted fair,
|
2147
|
+
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
|
2148
|
+
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
|
2149
|
+
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:
|
2150
|
+
For since each hand hath put on Nature's power,
|
2151
|
+
Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face,
|
2152
|
+
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
|
2153
|
+
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
|
2154
|
+
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
|
2155
|
+
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
|
2156
|
+
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
|
2157
|
+
Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:
|
2158
|
+
Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
|
2159
|
+
That every tongue says beauty should look so.
|
2160
|
+
|
2161
|
+
CXXVIII.
|
2162
|
+
|
2163
|
+
How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,
|
2164
|
+
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
|
2165
|
+
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st
|
2166
|
+
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
|
2167
|
+
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
|
2168
|
+
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
|
2169
|
+
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
|
2170
|
+
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
|
2171
|
+
To be so tickled, they would change their state
|
2172
|
+
And situation with those dancing chips,
|
2173
|
+
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
|
2174
|
+
Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.
|
2175
|
+
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
|
2176
|
+
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
|
2177
|
+
|
2178
|
+
CXXIX.
|
2179
|
+
|
2180
|
+
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
|
2181
|
+
Is lust in action: and till action, lust
|
2182
|
+
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
|
2183
|
+
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
|
2184
|
+
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;
|
2185
|
+
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
|
2186
|
+
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
|
2187
|
+
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
|
2188
|
+
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
|
2189
|
+
Had, having, and in quest to have extreme;
|
2190
|
+
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
|
2191
|
+
Before, a joy proposed; behind a dream.
|
2192
|
+
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
|
2193
|
+
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
|
2194
|
+
|
2195
|
+
CXXX.
|
2196
|
+
|
2197
|
+
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
|
2198
|
+
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
|
2199
|
+
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
|
2200
|
+
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
|
2201
|
+
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
|
2202
|
+
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
|
2203
|
+
And in some perfumes is there more delight
|
2204
|
+
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
|
2205
|
+
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
|
2206
|
+
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
|
2207
|
+
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
|
2208
|
+
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
|
2209
|
+
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
|
2210
|
+
As any she belied with false compare.
|
2211
|
+
|
2212
|
+
CXXXI.
|
2213
|
+
|
2214
|
+
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
|
2215
|
+
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
|
2216
|
+
For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
|
2217
|
+
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
|
2218
|
+
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,
|
2219
|
+
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;
|
2220
|
+
To say they err I dare not be so bold,
|
2221
|
+
Although I swear it to myself alone.
|
2222
|
+
And to be sure that is not false I swear,
|
2223
|
+
A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,
|
2224
|
+
One on another's neck, do witness bear
|
2225
|
+
Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
|
2226
|
+
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
|
2227
|
+
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.
|
2228
|
+
|
2229
|
+
CXXXII.
|
2230
|
+
|
2231
|
+
Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
|
2232
|
+
Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain,
|
2233
|
+
Have put on black and loving mourners be,
|
2234
|
+
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
|
2235
|
+
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
|
2236
|
+
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
|
2237
|
+
Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
|
2238
|
+
Doth half that glory to the sober west,
|
2239
|
+
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
|
2240
|
+
O! let it then as well beseem thy heart
|
2241
|
+
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
|
2242
|
+
And suit thy pity like in every part.
|
2243
|
+
Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
|
2244
|
+
And all they foul that thy complexion lack.
|
2245
|
+
|
2246
|
+
CXXXIII.
|
2247
|
+
|
2248
|
+
Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
|
2249
|
+
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!
|
2250
|
+
Is't not enough to torture me alone,
|
2251
|
+
But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?
|
2252
|
+
Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,
|
2253
|
+
And my next self thou harder hast engrossed:
|
2254
|
+
Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken;
|
2255
|
+
A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed.
|
2256
|
+
Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,
|
2257
|
+
But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail;
|
2258
|
+
Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard;
|
2259
|
+
Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail:
|
2260
|
+
And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,
|
2261
|
+
Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.
|
2262
|
+
|
2263
|
+
CXXXIV.
|
2264
|
+
|
2265
|
+
So now I have confessed that he is thine,
|
2266
|
+
And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,
|
2267
|
+
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
|
2268
|
+
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:
|
2269
|
+
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
|
2270
|
+
For thou art covetous, and he is kind;
|
2271
|
+
He learned but surety-like to write for me,
|
2272
|
+
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.
|
2273
|
+
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
|
2274
|
+
Thou usurer, that put'st forth all to use,
|
2275
|
+
And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;
|
2276
|
+
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
|
2277
|
+
Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:
|
2278
|
+
He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.
|
2279
|
+
|
2280
|
+
CXXXV.
|
2281
|
+
|
2282
|
+
Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
|
2283
|
+
And Will to boot, and Will in over-plus;
|
2284
|
+
More than enough am I that vexed thee still,
|
2285
|
+
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
|
2286
|
+
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
|
2287
|
+
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
|
2288
|
+
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
|
2289
|
+
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
|
2290
|
+
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
|
2291
|
+
And in abundance addeth to his store;
|
2292
|
+
So thou, being rich in Will, add to thy Will
|
2293
|
+
One will of mine, to make thy large will more.
|
2294
|
+
Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;
|
2295
|
+
Think all but one, and me in that one Will.
|
2296
|
+
|
2297
|
+
CXXXVI.
|
2298
|
+
|
2299
|
+
If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
|
2300
|
+
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,
|
2301
|
+
And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;
|
2302
|
+
Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.
|
2303
|
+
Will, will fulfil the treasure of thy love,
|
2304
|
+
Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one.
|
2305
|
+
In things of great receipt with ease we prove
|
2306
|
+
Among a number one is reckoned none:
|
2307
|
+
Then in the number let me pass untold,
|
2308
|
+
Though in thy store's account I one must be;
|
2309
|
+
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold
|
2310
|
+
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee:
|
2311
|
+
Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
|
2312
|
+
And then thou lovest me for my name is 'Will.'
|
2313
|
+
|
2314
|
+
CXXXVII.
|
2315
|
+
|
2316
|
+
Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
|
2317
|
+
That they behold, and see not what they see?
|
2318
|
+
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
|
2319
|
+
Yet what the best is take the worst to be.
|
2320
|
+
If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks,
|
2321
|
+
Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,
|
2322
|
+
Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
|
2323
|
+
Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
|
2324
|
+
Why should my heart think that a several plot,
|
2325
|
+
Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?
|
2326
|
+
Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not,
|
2327
|
+
To put fair truth upon so foul a face?
|
2328
|
+
In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,
|
2329
|
+
And to this false plague are they now transferred.
|
2330
|
+
|
2331
|
+
CXXXVIII.
|
2332
|
+
|
2333
|
+
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
|
2334
|
+
I do believe her though I know she lies,
|
2335
|
+
That she might think me some untutored youth,
|
2336
|
+
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
|
2337
|
+
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
|
2338
|
+
Although she knows my days are past the best,
|
2339
|
+
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
|
2340
|
+
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
|
2341
|
+
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
|
2342
|
+
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
|
2343
|
+
O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,
|
2344
|
+
And age in love, loves not to have years told:
|
2345
|
+
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
|
2346
|
+
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
|
2347
|
+
|
2348
|
+
CXXXIX.
|
2349
|
+
|
2350
|
+
O! call not me to justify the wrong
|
2351
|
+
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
|
2352
|
+
Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue:
|
2353
|
+
Use power with power, and slay me not by art,
|
2354
|
+
Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,
|
2355
|
+
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:
|
2356
|
+
What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might
|
2357
|
+
Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?
|
2358
|
+
Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows
|
2359
|
+
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;
|
2360
|
+
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
|
2361
|
+
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
|
2362
|
+
Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,
|
2363
|
+
Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.
|
2364
|
+
|
2365
|
+
CXL.
|
2366
|
+
|
2367
|
+
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
|
2368
|
+
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
|
2369
|
+
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
|
2370
|
+
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
|
2371
|
+
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
|
2372
|
+
Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;
|
2373
|
+
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
|
2374
|
+
No news but health from their physicians know;
|
2375
|
+
For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,
|
2376
|
+
And in my madness might speak ill of thee;
|
2377
|
+
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
|
2378
|
+
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
|
2379
|
+
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
|
2380
|
+
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
|
2381
|
+
|
2382
|
+
CXLI.
|
2383
|
+
|
2384
|
+
In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
|
2385
|
+
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
|
2386
|
+
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
|
2387
|
+
Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.
|
2388
|
+
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;
|
2389
|
+
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
|
2390
|
+
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
|
2391
|
+
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
|
2392
|
+
But my five wits nor my five senses can
|
2393
|
+
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
|
2394
|
+
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
|
2395
|
+
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
|
2396
|
+
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
|
2397
|
+
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.
|
2398
|
+
|
2399
|
+
CXLII.
|
2400
|
+
|
2401
|
+
Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
|
2402
|
+
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:
|
2403
|
+
O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,
|
2404
|
+
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;
|
2405
|
+
Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,
|
2406
|
+
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
|
2407
|
+
And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,
|
2408
|
+
Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents.
|
2409
|
+
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those
|
2410
|
+
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
|
2411
|
+
Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,
|
2412
|
+
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
|
2413
|
+
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
|
2414
|
+
By self-example mayst thou be denied!
|
2415
|
+
|
2416
|
+
CXLIII.
|
2417
|
+
|
2418
|
+
Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
|
2419
|
+
One of her feathered creatures broke away,
|
2420
|
+
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch
|
2421
|
+
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;
|
2422
|
+
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
|
2423
|
+
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
|
2424
|
+
To follow that which flies before her face,
|
2425
|
+
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;
|
2426
|
+
So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,
|
2427
|
+
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
|
2428
|
+
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
|
2429
|
+
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;
|
2430
|
+
So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'
|
2431
|
+
If thou turn back and my loud crying still.
|
2432
|
+
|
2433
|
+
CXLIV.
|
2434
|
+
|
2435
|
+
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
|
2436
|
+
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
|
2437
|
+
The better angel is a man right fair,
|
2438
|
+
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
|
2439
|
+
To win me soon to hell, my female evil,
|
2440
|
+
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
|
2441
|
+
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
|
2442
|
+
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
|
2443
|
+
And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
|
2444
|
+
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
|
2445
|
+
But being both from me, both to each friend,
|
2446
|
+
I guess one angel in another's hell:
|
2447
|
+
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
|
2448
|
+
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
|
2449
|
+
|
2450
|
+
CXLV.
|
2451
|
+
|
2452
|
+
Those lips that Love's own hand did make,
|
2453
|
+
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',
|
2454
|
+
To me that languished for her sake:
|
2455
|
+
But when she saw my woeful state,
|
2456
|
+
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
|
2457
|
+
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
|
2458
|
+
Was used in giving gentle doom;
|
2459
|
+
And taught it thus anew to greet;
|
2460
|
+
'I hate' she altered with an end,
|
2461
|
+
That followed it as gentle day,
|
2462
|
+
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
|
2463
|
+
From heaven to hell is flown away.
|
2464
|
+
'I hate', from hate away she threw,
|
2465
|
+
And saved my life, saying 'not you'.
|
2466
|
+
|
2467
|
+
CXLVI.
|
2468
|
+
|
2469
|
+
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
|
2470
|
+
Why feed'st these rebel powers that thee array
|
2471
|
+
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
|
2472
|
+
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
|
2473
|
+
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
|
2474
|
+
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
|
2475
|
+
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
|
2476
|
+
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
|
2477
|
+
Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
|
2478
|
+
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
|
2479
|
+
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
|
2480
|
+
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
|
2481
|
+
So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
|
2482
|
+
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
|
2483
|
+
|
2484
|
+
CXLVII.
|
2485
|
+
|
2486
|
+
My love is as a fever longing still,
|
2487
|
+
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
|
2488
|
+
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
|
2489
|
+
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
|
2490
|
+
My reason, the physician to my love,
|
2491
|
+
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
|
2492
|
+
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
|
2493
|
+
Desire is death, which physic did except.
|
2494
|
+
Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,
|
2495
|
+
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
|
2496
|
+
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
|
2497
|
+
At random from the truth vainly expressed;
|
2498
|
+
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
|
2499
|
+
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
|
2500
|
+
|
2501
|
+
CXLVIII.
|
2502
|
+
|
2503
|
+
O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,
|
2504
|
+
Which have no correspondence with true sight;
|
2505
|
+
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
|
2506
|
+
That censures falsely what they see aright?
|
2507
|
+
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
|
2508
|
+
What means the world to say it is not so?
|
2509
|
+
If it be not, then love doth well denote
|
2510
|
+
Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,
|
2511
|
+
How can it? O! how can Love's eye be true,
|
2512
|
+
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
|
2513
|
+
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
|
2514
|
+
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.
|
2515
|
+
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
|
2516
|
+
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
|
2517
|
+
|
2518
|
+
CXLIX.
|
2519
|
+
|
2520
|
+
Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
|
2521
|
+
When I against myself with thee partake?
|
2522
|
+
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
|
2523
|
+
Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake?
|
2524
|
+
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,
|
2525
|
+
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,
|
2526
|
+
Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend
|
2527
|
+
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
|
2528
|
+
What merit do I in my self respect,
|
2529
|
+
That is so proud thy service to despise,
|
2530
|
+
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
|
2531
|
+
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
|
2532
|
+
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind,
|
2533
|
+
Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.
|
2534
|
+
|
2535
|
+
CL.
|
2536
|
+
|
2537
|
+
O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,
|
2538
|
+
With insufficiency my heart to sway?
|
2539
|
+
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
|
2540
|
+
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
|
2541
|
+
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
|
2542
|
+
That in the very refuse of thy deeds
|
2543
|
+
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
|
2544
|
+
That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?
|
2545
|
+
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
|
2546
|
+
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
|
2547
|
+
O! though I love what others do abhor,
|
2548
|
+
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:
|
2549
|
+
If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
|
2550
|
+
More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
|
2551
|
+
|
2552
|
+
CLI.
|
2553
|
+
|
2554
|
+
Love is too young to know what conscience is,
|
2555
|
+
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
|
2556
|
+
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
|
2557
|
+
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:
|
2558
|
+
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
|
2559
|
+
My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
|
2560
|
+
My soul doth tell my body that he may
|
2561
|
+
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
|
2562
|
+
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
|
2563
|
+
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
|
2564
|
+
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
|
2565
|
+
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
|
2566
|
+
No want of conscience hold it that I call
|
2567
|
+
Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.
|
2568
|
+
|
2569
|
+
CLII.
|
2570
|
+
|
2571
|
+
In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
|
2572
|
+
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
|
2573
|
+
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
|
2574
|
+
In vowing new hate after new love bearing:
|
2575
|
+
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
|
2576
|
+
When I break twenty? I am perjured most;
|
2577
|
+
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
|
2578
|
+
And all my honest faith in thee is lost:
|
2579
|
+
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
|
2580
|
+
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
|
2581
|
+
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
|
2582
|
+
Or made them swear against the thing they see;
|
2583
|
+
For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured eye,
|
2584
|
+
To swear against the truth so foul a lie!
|
2585
|
+
|
2586
|
+
CLIII.
|
2587
|
+
|
2588
|
+
Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:
|
2589
|
+
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
|
2590
|
+
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
|
2591
|
+
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
|
2592
|
+
Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love,
|
2593
|
+
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
|
2594
|
+
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
|
2595
|
+
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
|
2596
|
+
But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,
|
2597
|
+
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;
|
2598
|
+
I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,
|
2599
|
+
And thither hied, a sad distempered guest,
|
2600
|
+
But found no cure, the bath for my help lies
|
2601
|
+
Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.
|
2602
|
+
|
2603
|
+
CLIV.
|
2604
|
+
|
2605
|
+
The little Love-god lying once asleep,
|
2606
|
+
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
|
2607
|
+
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep
|
2608
|
+
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
|
2609
|
+
The fairest votary took up that fire
|
2610
|
+
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed;
|
2611
|
+
And so the General of hot desire
|
2612
|
+
Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed.
|
2613
|
+
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
|
2614
|
+
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
|
2615
|
+
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
|
2616
|
+
For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,
|
2617
|
+
Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
|
2618
|
+
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.
|