LXXXIX. Say that thou didst forfake me for some fault, And I will comment upon that offence : speak of my lameness, and I ftraight will halt; Against thy reafons making no defence. Thou canst not, love, difgrace me half fo ill, so set a form upon defired change, As I'll myself difgrace: knowing thy will, will acquaintance ftrangle, and look strange; le abfent from thy walks; and in my tongue hy fweet beloved name no more shall dwell; eft I (too much profane) fhould do it wrong, nd haply of our old acquaintance tell. For thee, against myself I'll vow debate,

For I muft ne'er love him whom thou doft hate.

ne glory in their birth, fome in their skill, ne in their wealth, fome in their body's force; ne in their garments, though new-fangled ill, ne in their hawks and hounds, fome in their horse;

d every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, herein it finds a joy above the rest; tthefe particulars are not my measure, 1 thefe I better in one general best. y love is better than high birth to me, cher than wealth, prouder than garments' coft, more delight than hawks or horfes be; d having thee, of all men's pride i boat. Wretched in this alone, that thou may't take All this away, and me most wretched make.

XCII.

t do thy worst to steal thyfelf away,
r term of life thou art affured mine;
id life no longer than thy love will stay,
rit depends upon that love of thine.

en need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
hen in the leaft of them my life hath end.
ee a better ftate to me belongs

lan that which on thy humour doth depend.
ou canst not vex me with inconftant mind,
ice that my life on thy revolt doth lie.
what a happy title do I find,

ppy to have thy love, happy to die!

Bat what's fo bleffed fair that fears no blot?-Thou may't be falfe, and yet I know it not: VOL. I.

So fhall I live, fuppofing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband; fo love's face
May ftill feem 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 falle heart's history
Is writ, in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange,
But heaven in thy creation did decree,
That in thy face fweet love fhould ever dwell;
Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be,
Thy looks fhould nothing thence but fweetness
tell.

How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,
If thy fweet virtue answer not thy how!

XCIV.

They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do fhow,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation flow;
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And hufband nature's riches from expence ;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but fewards of their excellence.
The fummer's flower is to the fummer fweet,
Though to itself it only live and die;
But if that flower with bafe infection meet,
The baseft weed out-braves his dignity:

For fweetest things turn foureft by their deeds;
Lilies that fefter, smell far worse than weeds.

XCV.

How sweet and lovely doft thou make the famė
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rofe,
Doth fpot the beauty of thy budding name?
O, in what fweets doft thou thy fins inclofe!
That tongue that tells the ftory of thy days,
Making lafcivious comments on thy fport,
Cannot difpraife but in a kind of praise;
Naming thy name bleffes an ill report.
O what a manfion have thofe vices got,
Which for their habitation chofe out thee!
Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turns to fair that eyes can fee!
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lole his edge.

XCVI.

Some fay thy fault is youth, fome wantonnefs;
Some fay thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and lefs;
Thou mak'it faults graces that to thee refort.
As on the finger of a throned queen
The bafeft jewel will be well elteem'd;
So are thofe errors that in thee are feen,
To truths tranflated, and for true things deem'd.
How many lambs might the ftern wolf betray,
If like a lamb he could his looks tranflate!
How many gazers might'ft thou lead away,
If thou would'ft ufe the ftrength of all thy flate!
But do not fo; I love thee in fuch fort,
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

Tt

XCVII.

How like a winter hath my abfence been
From thee, the pleafure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days feen?
What old December's bareness every where!
And yet this time remov'd was fummer'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 iffue feem'd to me
But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;
For fummer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;

Or, if they fing, 'tis with fo dull a cheer, [near.
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's

XCVIII.

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, drefs'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 fummer's flory tell, [grew:
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they
Nor did I wonder at the lilies white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rofe;
They were but fweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

Yet feem'd it winter ftill, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with thefe did play :

XCIX.

The forward violet thus did I chide ;-
Sweet thief, whence didft thou steal thy fweet that
fmells,

If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy foft cheek for complexion dwells,
In my love's veins thou haft too grofsly dy'd.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had ftolen thy hair:
The rofes fearfully on thorns did ftand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stolen 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 fee,
But fweet or colour it had ftolen from thee.

C.

Where art thou, Mufe, that thou forget'ft fo long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'ft thou thy fury on fome worthlefs fong,
Darkening thy power, to lend bafe fubjects light?
Return, forgetful Mufe, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time fo idly spent ;
Sing to the car that doth thy lays efteem,
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rife, reftive Mufe, my love's fweet face furvey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a fatire to decay,

And make Time's fpoils defpifed every where.
Give my love fame fafter than Time waftes life;
So thou prevent it his feythe, and crooked knife.

CI.

O truant Muse, what fhall be thy antends,
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So doft thou too, and therein dignify'd.
Make answer, Mufe: wilt thou not haply far,
Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd,
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:
But beft is beft, if never intermix'd?—
Because he needs no praife, wilt thou be dumb?
Excufe not filence fo; for it lies in thee
To make him much out-live a gilded tomb,
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.

Then do thy office, Mufe; I teach thee how
To make him feem long hence as he show

CII.

My love is ftrengthen'd, though more weak: feeming;

I love not lefs, though lefs the fhow appear: That love is merchandis'd, whose rich efteering 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 fummer's front doth fing, And ftops his pipe in growth of riper days: Not that the fummer is lefs pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hu night,

But that wild mufic burdens every bough, And fweets grown common lofe their dear Therefore, like her, I fometime hold my tiga Because I would not dull you with my kag

Alack what poverty my muse brings forh,
That having such a scope to fhow her pride,
The argument, all bare, is of more worth,
Than when it hath my added praife befe
O blame me not if I no more can write!
Look in your glass, and there appears a
1 hat over-goes my blunt invention quitt,
Dulling my lines, and doing me difgrace.
Were it not finful then, ftriving to mead,
To mar the fubject that before was wel?
For to no other país my verfes tend,
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;
And more, much more, than ia my ver
Your own glass shows you, when you look-

CIV.

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were, when first your eye Ieya
Such feems your beauty ftill. Three winer
Have from the forefts thook three fummer
Three beauteous fprings to yellow autuma ka
In procefs of the seasons have 1 feen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Jines der
Since first I faw you fresh which yet are g
Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd
So your fweet hue, which methinks itili
Hath motion, and mine eye may be dectiv

For fear of which, hear this, thou agt
Ere you were born was beauty's fuLE:*

CV.

Let not my love be call'd idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol fhow,
Since all alike my fongs and praises be,
To one, of one, ftill fuch, and ever fo.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still conftant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to conftancy confin'd,
One thing expreffing, 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 fcope affords.
Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone,
Which three, till now, never kept feat in one.

CVI.

When in the chronicle of wasted time fee defcriptions of the fairest wights, nd beauty making beautiful old rhime, à praife of ladies dead, and lovely knights, 'hen in the blazon of fweet beauty's best, of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, fee their antique pen would have exprefs'd ven fuch a beauty as you mafter now. all their praises are but prophecies this our time, all you prefiguring; ad, for they look'd but with divining eyes, hey had not fkill enough your worth to fing: For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

CVII.

t mine own fears, nor the prophetic foul the wide world dreaming on things to come, a yet the lease of my true love controul, pos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom. e mortal moon hath her eclipfe endur'd, d the fad augurs mock their own prefage; ertainties now crown themselves affur'd, peace proclaims olives of endless age. w with the drops of this most balmy time love looks fresh, and Death to me fubfcribes, e fpite of him I'll live in this poor rhime, ile he infults o'er dull and fpeechless tribes. ind thou in this fhalt find thy monument, When tyrants' crefts and tombs of brafs are fpent.

CVIII.

at's in the brain that ink may character, ich hath not figur'd to thee my true fpirit? at's new to fpeak, what new to register, it may exprefs my love, or thy dear merit? hing, fweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine, uft each day say o'er the very same; inting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, n as when first I hallowed thy fair name. that eternal love in love's fresh cafe ighs not the dust and injury of age, gives to neceffary wrinkles place, makes antiquity for aye his page; inding the firft conceit of love there bred,

Where time and outward form would fhow it dead.

CIX.

O never say that I was false of heart, Though abfence feem'd my flame to qualify. As eafy might I from myfelf depart,

As from my foul which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have rang'd,
Like him that travels, I return again;
Juft to the time, not with the time exchang'd,-
So that myfelf bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
All frailties that befiege all kinds of blood,
That it could fo preposterously be ftain'd,
To leave for nothing all thy fum of good;
For nothing this wide univerfe I call,
Save thou, my rofe; in it thou art my all.

Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gor'd mine own thoughts, fold cheap what is moft
dear,

Made old offences of affections new.
Moft true it is, that I have look'd on truth
Afkance and strangely; but, by all above,
Thefe blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worfe effays prov'd thee my best of love.
Now all is done, fave what fhall 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. [beft,
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the
Even to thy pure and most most loving breaft.

CXI.

O for my fake do thou 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 fubdu'd
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
Pity me then, and with I were renew'd;
Whilft, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eyfell, 'gainst my ftrong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double pennance to correct correction.

Pity me then, dear friend, and I affure ye,
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

CXII.

Your love and pity doth the impreffion fill
Which vulgar fcandai ftamp'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 fhames and praifes from your
tongue;

None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steel'd sense or changes, right or wrong.
In fo profound abyfm 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 difpenfe :--
You are fo ftrongly in my purpose bred,
That all the world befides methinks are dead,

CXIII.

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about,
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems feeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart

Of bird, of flower, or fhape, which it doth lack;
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vifion holds what it doth catch;
For if it fee the rud'ft or gentleft fight,
The most sweet favour, or deformed'ft creature,
The mountain or the fea, 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.

CXIV.

Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with

you,

Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery,
Or whether fhall I fay mine eye faith true,
And that your love taught it this alcumy,
To make of monfters and things indigeft,
Such cherubins as your fweet felf refemble,
Creating every bad a perfect beft,

As faft as objects to his beams affemble?
O'tis the first; 'tis flattery in my feeing,
And my great mind moft kingly drinks it up:
Mine eye well knows what with his guft is greeing,
And to his palate doth prepare the cup:

If it be poifon'd, 'tis the leffer fin

That mine eye loves it, and doth first begin.

CXV.

Thofe lines that I before have writ, do lie,
Even thofe that faid I could not love you dearer;
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My moft full flame fhould afterwards burn clearer.
But reckoning time, whofe million'd accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan facred beauty, blunt the sharp'ft intents,
Divert ftrong minds to the courfe of altering things;
Alas! why, fearing of time's tyranny,
Might I not then fay, now I love you best,
When was certain, o'er incertainty,
Crowning the prefent, doubting of the reft?
Love is a babe; then might I not fay fo,
To give full growth to that which still doth
grow?

CXVI.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove :
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempefts, and is never shaken ;
It is the ftar to every wandering bark, (taken.
Whofe worth's unknown, although his height be
Love's not Time's fool, though rofy lips and checks
Within his bending fickle's compass come;
Love alters pot 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.

Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unfeen,
We ficken to fhun fickness, when we purge;
Even fo, being full of your ne'er cloying Iweeties
To bitter fauces did I frame my feeding,
And, fick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
To be difeas'd, ere that there was true needag.
Thus policy in love, to anticipate

The ills that were not, grew to faults affured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state,
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cared
But thence I learn, and find the leffon true,
Drugs poison him that fo fell fick of you.

That you were once unkind, befriends me now,
And for that forrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my tranfgreffon bow,
Unless my nerves were brafs or hammer'd fire
For if you were by my unkindness shaker,
As I by yours, you have pais'd a hell of time;
And I, a tyrant, have no leifure taken
To weigh how once I fuffer'd in your
O that our night of woe might have remen.be &
My deepest fenfe, how hard true forrow h
And focn to you, as you to me, then terder'd
The humble falve which wounded bofan. 15
But that your trespass now becomes a fee,
Mine ransons your's, and your's faul Jona

crime.

'Tis better to be vile, than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the juft pleasure loft, which is fo deem'd
Not by our feeling, but by others' feeing.
For why fhould others' falfe adulterate eyes
Give falutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer fpies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am; and they that level
At my abuses, reckon up their own :

I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,

All men are bad and in their badness reign.

CXXII.

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full character'd with lafting memory,
Which fhall 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 fo much hold,
Nor need I tailies, thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
o truft thofe tables that receive thee more:
To keep an adjunct to remember thee,
Were to import forgetfulness in me.

CXXIII.

lo! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change: hy pyramids built up with newer might o me are nothing novel, nothing strange; hey are but dreffings of a former fight.

ur dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou doft foift upon us that is old, nd rather make them born to our defire, han think that we before have heard them told. hy registers and thee I both defy,

ot wondering at the prefent nor the past; or thy records and what we fee doth lie, Made more or lefs by thy continual hafte : This I do vow, and this fhall ever be, I will be true despite thy feythe and thee.

CXXIV.

my dear love were but the child of flate, might for fortune's baftard be unfather'd, s fubject to time's love, or to time's hate,

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Doft hold time's fickle glafs, his fickle, hour;
Who haft by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lovers withering, as thy fweet felf grow'st;
If nature, fovereign mistress over wrack,

As thou goeft onwards, ftill 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 ftill keep her treafure: Her audit, though delay'd, anfwer'd must be, And her quietus is to render thee.

CXXVII.

In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's fucceffive heir,
And beauty flander'd with a baftard fhame.
For fince each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's falfe borrow'd face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy hour,
But is profan'd, if not lives in difgrace.
Therefore my miftrefs' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes fo fuited; and they mourners feem
At fuch, who not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a falfe efteem:

Yet fo they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue fays, beauty fhould look fo

CXXVIII.

Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls: fears not policy, that heretic,

Vhich works on leafes of fhort-number'd hours,

But all alone ftands hugely politic,

Do I envy thofe jacks, that nimble leap
To kifs the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilft my poor lips, which fhould that harvest

reap,

At the wood's boldness by thee blushing ftand!
To be fo tickled, they would change their ftate
And fituation with thofe dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,

lips.

Since faucy jacks fo happy are in this, Give them thy fingers, me thy Hips to kil