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sonnet.txt

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