sonnets.typ

I: I

S:  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's flame with self-substantial fuel,
 :  Making a famine where abundance lies,
 :  Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
 :  Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
 :  And only herald to the gaudy spring,
 :  Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
 :  And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:
 :    Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
 :    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

I:  II

S:  When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
 :  And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
 :  Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
 :  Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held:
 :  Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
 :  Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
 :  To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
 :  Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
 :  How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,
 :  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.

I:  III

S:  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 shalt see,
 :  Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
 :    But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
 :    Die single and thine image dies with thee.

I:  IV

S:  Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
 :  Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
 :  Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
 :  And being frank she lends to those are free:
 :  Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
 :  The bounteous largess given thee to give?
 :  Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
 :  So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
 :  For having traffic with thy self alone,
 :  Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:
 :  Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
 :  What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
 :    Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
 :    Which, used, lives th' executor to be.

I:  V

S:  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 checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
 :  Beauty o'er-snowed 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.


I:  VI

S:  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 thy self to breed another thee,
 :  Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
 :  Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
 :  If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee:
 :  Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
 :  Leaving thee living in posterity?
 :    Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
 :    To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

I:  VII

S:  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 outgoing in thy noon:
 :    Unlook'd, on diest unless thou get a son.

I:  VIII

S:  Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
 :  Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
 :  Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
 :  Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
 :  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.'

I:  IX

S:  Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
 :  That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
 :  Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
 :  The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
 :  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 murd'rous shame commits.

I:  X

S:  For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,
 :  Who for thy self art so unprovident.
 :  Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many,
 :  But that thou none lov'st is most evident:
 :  For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate,
 :  That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,
 :  Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
 :  Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
 :  O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:
 :  Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love?
 :  Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
 :  Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
 :    Make thee another self for love of me,
 :    That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

I:  XI

S:  As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st,
 :  In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
 :  And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,
 :  Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest,
 :  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 thee more;
 :  Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
 :    She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant thereby,
 :    Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

I:  XII

S:  When I do count the clock that tells the time,
 :  And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
 :  When I behold the violet past prime,
 :  And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;
 :  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.

I:  XIII

S:  O! that you were your self; but, love you are
 :  No longer yours, than you your self here live:
 :  Against this coming end you should prepare,
 :  And your sweet semblance to some other give:
 :  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.

I:  XIV

S:  Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;
 :  And yet methinks I have astronomy,
 :  But not to tell of good or evil luck,
 :  Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
 :  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.'

I:  XV

S:  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 checked even by the self-same sky,
 :  Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
 :  And wear their brave state out of memory;
 :  Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
 :  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.

I:  XVI

S:  But wherefore do not you a mightier way
 :  Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
 :  And fortify your self in your decay
 :  With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
 :  Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
 :  And many maiden gardens, yet unset,
 :  With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
 :  Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
 :  So should the lines of life that life repair,
 :  Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,
 :  Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,
 :  Can make you live your self in eyes of men.
 :    To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,
 :    And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

I:  XVII

S:  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.

I:  XVIII

S:  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 ow'st,
 :  Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
 :  When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
 :    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
 :    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I:  XIX

S:  Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
 :  And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
 :  Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
 :  And burn the long-liv'd phoenix, in her blood;
 :  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.

I:  XX

S:  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,
 :  Which 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.

I:  XXI

S:  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 that like of hearsay well;
 :    I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

I:  XXII

S:  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 gav'st me thine not to give back again.

I:  XXIII

S:  As an unperfect actor on the stage,
 :  Who with his fear is put beside his part,
 :  Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
 :  Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
 :  So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
 :  The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
 :  And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
 :  O'ercharg'd with burthen of mine own love's might.
 :  O! let my looks be then the eloquence
 :  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.

I:  XXIV

S:  Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd,
 :  Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
 :  My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
 :  And perspective it is best painter's art.
 :  For through the painter must you see his skill,
 :  To find where your true image pictur'd lies,
 :  Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
 :  That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
 :  Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
 :  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.

I:  XXV

S:  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 belov'd,
 :  Where I may not remove nor be remov'd.

I:  XXVI

S:  Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
 :  Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
 :  To thee I send this written embassage,
 :  To witness duty, not to show my wit:
 :  Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
 :  May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
 :  But that I hope some good conceit of thine
 :  In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it:
 :  Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
 :  Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
 :  And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,
 :  To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
 :    Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
 :    Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

I:  XXVII

S:  Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
 :  The dear respose for limbs with travel tir'd;
 :  But then begins a journey in my head
 :  To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
 :  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.

I:  XXVIII

S:  How can I then return in happy plight,
 :  That am debarre'd the benefit of rest?
 :  When day's oppression is not eas'd by night,
 :  But day by night and night by day oppress'd,
 :  And each, though enemies to either's reign,
 :  Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
 :  The one by toil, the other to complain
 :  How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
 :  I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,
 :  And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
 :  So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,
 :  When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.
 :    But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
 :    And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.

I:  XXIX

S:  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,
 :  Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
 :  Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
 :  With what I most enjoy contented least;
 :  Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
 :  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.

I:  XXX

S:  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 restor'd and sorrows end.

I:  XXXI

S:  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 remov'd 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 lov'd, I view in thee,
 :    And thou--all they--hast all the all of me.

I:  XXXII

S:  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 bett'ring of the time,
 :  And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
 :  Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
 :  Exceeded by the height of happier men.
 :  O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
 :  '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'.

I:  XXXIII

S:  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 splendour on my brow;
 :  But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,
 :  The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
 :    Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
 :    Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

I:  XXXIV

S:  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.

I:  XXXV

S:  No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:
 :  Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:
 :  Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
 :  And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
 :  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.

I:  XXXVI

S:  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.

I:  XXXVII

S:  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 despis'd,
 :  Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
 :  That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,
 :  And by a part of all thy glory live.
 :    Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:
 :    This wish I have; then ten times happy me!

I:  XXXVIII

S:  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 thy self the thanks, if aught in me
 :  Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
 :  For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
 :  When thou thy self dost give invention light?
 :  Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
 :  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.

I:  XXXIX

S:  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 deserv'st 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.

I:  XL

S:  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 blam'd, if thou thy self 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.

I:  XLI

S:  Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
 :  When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
 :  Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,
 :  For still temptation follows where thou art.
 :  Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
 :  Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;
 :  And when a woman woos, what woman's son
 :  Will sourly leave her till he have prevail'd?
 :  Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
 :  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.

I:  XLII

S:  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 know'st I love her;
 :  And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
 :  Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.
 :  If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,
 :  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.

I:  XLIII

S:  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.

I:  XLIV

S:  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 remov'd from thee;
 :  For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
 :  As soon as think the place where he would be.
 :  But, ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,
 :  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.

I:  XLV

S:  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 recur'd
 :  By those swift messengers return'd from thee,
 :  Who even but now come back again, assur'd,
 :  Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:
 :    This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,
 :    I send them back again, and straight grow sad.

I:  XLVI

S:  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 pierc'd with crystal eyes--
 :  But the defendant doth that plea deny,
 :  And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
 :  To side this title is impannelled
 :  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.

I:  XLVII

S:  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,
 :  Thy self away, art present still with me;
 :  For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
 :  And I am still with them, and they with thee;
 :    Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
 :    Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.

I:  XLVIII

S:  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 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.

I:  XLIX

S:  Against that time, if ever that time come,
 :  When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
 :  When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
 :  Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects;
 :  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 my self uprear,
 :  To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:
 :    To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
 :    Since why to love I can allege no cause.

I:  L

S:  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 lov'd 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.

I:  LI

S:  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.'

I:  LII

S:  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 that long year set,
 :  Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
 :  Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
 :  So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
 :  Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
 :  To make some special instant special-blest,
 :  By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.
 :    Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
 :    Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope.

I:  LIII

S:  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.

I:  LIV

S:  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 vade, by verse distills your truth.

I:  LV

S:  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 lovers' eyes.

I:  LVI

S:  Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
 :  Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
 :  Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,
 :  To-morrow sharpened in his former might:
 :  So, love, be thou, although to-day thou fill
 :  Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,
 :  To-morrow see again, and do not kill
 :  The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness.
 :  Let this sad interim like the ocean be
 :  Which parts the shore, where two contracted new
 :  Come daily to the banks, that when they see
 :  Return of love, more blest may be the view;
 :    Or call it winter, which being full of care,
 :    Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.

I:  LVII

S:  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 anything, he thinks no ill.

I:  LVIII

S:  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 privilage your time
 :  To what you will; to you it doth belong
 :  Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
 :    I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
 :    Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.

I:  LIX

S:  If there be nothing new, but that which is
 :  Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
 :  Which labouring for invention bear amiss
 :  The second burthen of a former child!
 :  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;
 :  Wh'r we are mended, or wh'r better they,
 :  Or whether revolution be the same.
 :    O! sure I am the wits of former days,
 :    To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

I:  LX

S:  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 eclipses '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.

I:  LXI

S:  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 tenure 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.

I:  LXII

S:  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 tanned antiquity,
 :  Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
 :  Self so self-loving were iniquity.
 :    'Tis thee,--myself,--that for myself I praise,
 :    Painting my age with beauty of thy days.

I:  LXIII

S:  Against my love shall be as I am now,
 :  With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn;
 :  When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow
 :  With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
 :  Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;
 :  And all those beauties whereof now he's king
 :  Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
 :  Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
 :  For such a time do I now fortify
 :  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.

I:  LXIV

S:  When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
 :  The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
 :  When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd,
 :  And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
 :  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.

I:  LXV

S:  Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
 :  But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
 :  How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
 :  Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
 :  O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
 :  Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
 :  When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
 :  Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?
 :  O fearful meditation! where, alack,
 :  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.

I:  LXVI

S:  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 gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,
 :  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
 :  And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,
 :  And strength by limping sway disabled
 :  And art made tongue-tied by authority,
 :  And folly--doctor-like--controlling skill,
 :  And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
 :  And captive good attending captain ill:
 :    Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,
 :    Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

I:  LXVII

S:  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 steel dead seeming of his living hue?
 :  Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
 :  Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
 :  Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
 :  Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins?
 :  For she hath no exchequer now but his,
 :  And proud of many, lives upon his gains.
 :    O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had
 :    In days long since, before these last so bad.

I:  LXVIII

S:  Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
 :  When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
 :  Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
 :  Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
 :  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.

I:  LXIX

S:  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 soil is this, that thou dost common grow.

I:  LXX

S:  That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect,
 :  For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
 :  The ornament of beauty is suspect,
 :  A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
 :  So thou be good, slander doth but approve
 :  Thy worth the greater being woo'd of time;
 :  For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
 :  And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
 :  Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days
 :  Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd;
 :  Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
 :  To tie up envy, evermore enlarg'd,
 :    If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show,
 :    Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.

I:  LXXI

S:  No longer mourn for me when I am dead
 :  Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
 :  Give warning to the world that I am fled
 :  From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
 :  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.

I:  LXXII

S:  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.

I:  LXXIII

S:  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 see'st the twilight of such day
 :  As after sunset fadeth in the west;
 :  Which by and by black night doth take away,
 :  Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
 :  In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
 :  That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
 :  As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
 :  Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
 :    This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
 :    To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

I:  LXXIV

S:  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.

I:  LXXV

S:  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.

I:  LXXVI

S:  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.

I:  LXXVII

S:  Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
 :  Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
 :  These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
 :  And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.
 :  The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
 :  Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
 :  Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know
 :  Time's thievish progress to eternity.
 :  Look! what thy memory cannot contain,
 :  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.

I:  LXXVIII

S:  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.

I:  LXXIX

S:  Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
 :  My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;
 :  But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,
 :  And my sick Muse doth give an other place.
 :  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 behaviour; beauty doth he give,
 :  And found it in thy cheek: he can afford
 :  No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.
 :    Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
 :    Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.

I:  LXXX

S:  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 wrack'd, I am a worthless boat,
 :  He of tall building, and of goodly pride:
 :    Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
 :    The worst was this,--my love was my decay.

I:  LXXXI

S:  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:  LXXXII

S:  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 devis'd,
 :  What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
 :  Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathiz'd
 :  In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;
 :    And their gross painting might be better us'd
 :    Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.

I:  LXXXIII

S:  I never saw that you did painting need,
 :  And therefore to your fair no painting set;
 :  I found, or thought I found, you did exceed
 :  That barren tender of a poet's debt:
 :  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.

I:  LXXXIV

S:  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.

I:  LXXXV

S:  My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
 :  While comments of your praise richly compil'd,
 :  Reserve their character with golden quill,
 :  And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.
 :  I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,
 :  And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen'
 :  To every hymn that able spirit affords,
 :  In polish'd form of well-refined pen.
 :  Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,'
 :  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.

I:  LXXXVI

S:  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 lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.

I:  LXXXVII

S:  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.
 :  Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
 :  Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;
 :  So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
 :  Comes home again, on better judgement making.
 :    Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
 :    In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

I:  LXXXVIII

S:  When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,
 :  And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
 :  Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight,
 :  And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.
 :  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.

I:  LXXXIX

S:  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 my self I'll vow debate,
 :    For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.

I:  XC

S:  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 'scap'd this sorrow,
 :  Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
 :  Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
 :  To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.
 :  If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
 :  When other petty griefs have done their spite,
 :  But in the onset come: so shall I taste
 :  At first the very worst of fortune's might;
 :    And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
 :    Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so.

I:  XCI

S:  Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
 :  Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,
 :  Some in their garments though new-fangled ill;
 :  Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
 :  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' costs,
 :  Of more delight than hawks and horses be;
 :  And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:
 :    Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take
 :    All this away, and me most wretchcd make.

I:  XCII

S:  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.

I:  XCIII

S:  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!

I:  XCIV

S:  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.

I:  XCV

S:  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 turns to fair that eyes can see!
 :    Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
 :    The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lose his edge.

I:  XCVI

S:  Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
 :  Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
 :  Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less:
 :  Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.
 :  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.

I:  XCVII

S:  How like a winter hath my absence been
 :  From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
 :  What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
 :  What old December's bareness everywhere!
 :  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.

I:  XCVIII

S:  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.

I:  XCIX

S:  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 dy'd.
 :  The lily I condemned for thy hand,
 :  And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;
 :  The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
 :  One blushing shame, another white despair;
 :  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.

I:  C

S:  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.

I:  CI

S:  O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
 :  For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?
 :  Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
 :  So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
 :  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 prais'd of ages yet to be.
 :    Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
 :    To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

I:  CII

S:  My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;
 :  I love not less, though less the show appear;
 :  That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,
 :  The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
 :  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.

I:  CIII

S:  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.

I:  CIV

S:  To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
 :  For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
 :  Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
 :  Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
 :  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 perceiv'd;
 :  So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
 :  Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd:
 :    For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:
 :    Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

I:  CV

S:  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 confin'd,
 :  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 liv'd alone,
 :    Which three till now, never kept seat in one.

I:  CVI

S:  When in the chronicle of wasted time
 :  I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
 :  And beauty making beautiful old rime,
 :  In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
 :  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 looked but with divining eyes,
 :  They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
 :    For we, which now behold these present days,
 :    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

I:  CVII

S:  Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
 :  Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
 :  Can yet the lease of my true love control,
 :  Supposed as forfeit to a confin'd doom.
 :  The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,
 :  And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
 :  Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd,
 :  And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
 :  Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
 :  My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
 :  Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rime,
 :  While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:
 :    And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
 :    When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

I:  CVIII

S:  What's in the brain, that ink may character,
 :  Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit?
 :  What's new to speak, what now to register,
 :  That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
 :  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.

I:  CIX

S:  O! never say that I was false of heart,
 :  Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify,
 :  As easy might I from my self depart
 :  As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
 :  That is my home of love: if I have rang'd,
 :  Like him that travels, I return again;
 :  Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd,
 :  So that myself bring water for my stain.
 :  Never believe though in my nature reign'd,
 :  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.

I:  CX

S:  Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
 :  And made my self a motley to the view,
 :  Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
 :  Made old offences of affections new;
 :  Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth
 :  Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
 :  These blenches gave my heart another youth,
 :  And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.
 :  Now all is done, save what shall have no end:
 :  Mine appetite I never more will grind
 :  On newer proof, to try an older friend,
 :  A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.
 :    Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
 :    Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

I:  CXI

S:  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 subdu'd
 :  To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
 :  Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd;
 :  Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink,
 :  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.

I:  CXII

S:  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.

I:  CXIII

S:  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 rud'st 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 maketh mine untrue.

I:  CXIV

S:  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.

I:  CXV

S:  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?

I:  CXVI

S:  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 prov'd,
 :    I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

I:  CXVII

S:  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-purchas'd right;
 :  That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
 :  Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
 :  Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
 :  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.

I:  CXVIII

S:  Like as, to make our appetite more keen,
 :  With eager compounds we our palate urge;
 :  As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
 :  We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;
 :  Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,
 :  To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
 :  And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
 :  To be diseas'd, ere that there was true needing.
 :  Thus policy in love, to anticipate
 :  The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd,
 :  And brought to medicine a healthful state
 :  Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd;
 :    But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
 :    Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

I:  CXIX

S:  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 rebuk'd to my content,
 :    And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.

I:  CXX

S:  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 suffer'd 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.

I:  CXXI

S:  '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.

I:  CXXII

S:  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 raz'd 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.

I:  CXXIII

S:  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.

I:  CXXIV

S:  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 th' 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.

I:  CXXV

S:  Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
 :  With my extern the outward honouring,
 :  Or laid great bases for eternity,
 :  Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
 :  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 suborned informer! a true soul
 :    When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control.

I:  CXXVI

S:  O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
 :  Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour;
 :  Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
 :  Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.
 :  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 delayed) answered must be,
 :    And her quietus is to render thee.

I:  CXXVII

S:  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 borrowed face,
 :  Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
 :  But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace.
 :  Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
 :  Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
 :  At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
 :  Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:
 :    Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
 :    That every tongue says beauty should look so.

I:  CXXVIII

S:  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 bless'd than living lips.
 :    Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
 :    Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

I:  CXXIX

S:  The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
 :  Is lust in action: and till action, lust
 :  Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
 :  Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
 :  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 prov'd, a very woe;
 :  Before, a joy propos'd; behind a dream.
 :    All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
 :    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

I:  CXXX

S:  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.

I:  CXXXI

S:  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.

I:  CXXXII

S:  Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
 :  Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
 :  Have put on black and loving mourners be,
 :  Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
 :  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.

I:  CXXXIII

S:  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 three-fold 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 rigour in my jail:
 :    And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,
 :    Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.

I:  CXXXIV

S:  So, now I have confess'd that he is thine,
 :  And I my self am mortgag'd to thy will,
 :  Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
 :  Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:
 :  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 putt'st forth all to use,
 :  And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;
 :  So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
 :    Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:
 :    He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

I:  CXXXV

S:  Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'
 :  And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus;
 :  More than enough am I that vex'd thee still,
 :  To thy sweet will making addition thus.
 :  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.'

I:  CXXXVI

S:  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 store's account I one must be;
 :  For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold
 :  That nothing me, a something sweet to thee:
 :    Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
 :    And then thou lov'st me for my name is 'Will.'

I:  CXXXVII

S:  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 err'd,
 :    And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.

I:  CXXXVIII

S:  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 suppressed:
 :  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.

I:  CXXXIX

S:  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 lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,
 :  Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:
 :  What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might
 :  Is more than my o'erpress'd defence can bide?
 :  Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows
 :  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.


I:  CXL

S:  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.

I:  CXLI

S:  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 heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
 :    Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
 :    That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

I:  CXLII

S:  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 profan'd their scarlet ornaments
 :  And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,
 :  Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.
 :  Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those
 :  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!

I:  CXLIII

S:  Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
 :  One of her feather'd creatures broke away,
 :  Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch
 :  In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;
 :  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.

I:  CXLIV

S:  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, yet not directly tell;
 :  But being both from me, both to each friend,
 :  I guess one angel in another's hell:
 :    Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
 :    Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

I:  CXLV

S:  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 us'd in giving gentle doom;
 :  And taught it thus anew to greet;
 :  'I hate' she alter'd with an end,
 :  That followed it as gentle day,
 :  Doth follow night, who like a fiend
 :  From heaven to hell is flown away.
 :    'I hate', from hate away she threw,
 :    And sav'd my life, saying 'not you'.

I:  CXLVI

S:  Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
 :  My sinful earth these rebel powers array,
 :  Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
 :  Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
 :  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 shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
 :    And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

I:  CXLVII

S:  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.

I:  CXLVIII

S:  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 vexed with watching and with tears?
 :  No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
 :  The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.
 :    O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
 :    Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

I:  CXLIX

S:  Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
 :  When I against myself with thee partake?
 :  Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
 :  Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake?
 :  Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,
 :  On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,
 :  Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend
 :  Revenge upon myself with present moan?
 :  What merit do I in my self respect,
 :  That is so proud thy service to despise,
 :  When all my best doth worship thy defect,
 :  Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
 :    But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
 :    Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.

I:  CL

S:  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 warrantise 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 rais'd love in me,
 :    More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.

I:  CLI

S:  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 farther 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.

I:  CLII

S:  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 perjur'd most;
 :  For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
 :  And all my honest faith in thee is lost:
 :  For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
 :  Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
 :  And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
 :  Or made them swear against the thing they see;
 :    For I have sworn thee fair; more perjur'd I,
 :    To swear against the truth so foul a lie!

I:  CLIII

S:  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 seeting 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.

I:  CLIV

S:  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 diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall,
 :    Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
 :    Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.