Ah, wherefore with infection should he live
And with his presence grace impiety,
That fin by him advantage should achieve
And lace itself with his fociety?
Why should falfe painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeing of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indire&ly seek
Roses of shadow, fince his rose is true?
Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins?
For fhe hath no exchequer now but his,
many, lives upon his gains.
O, him she stores, to show what wealth she had
In days long fince, before these last so bad.
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 durft inhabit on a living brow;
Before the golden treffes of the dead,
The right of fepulchres, were fhorn away,
To live a fecond life on fecond 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 fummer of another's green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;
And him as for a map doth Nature ftore,
To show false Art what beauty was of yore.
Thofe parts of thee that the world's eye doth view Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend; All tongues, the voice of fouls, give thee that due, Uttering bare truth, even fo as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;
But those fame 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
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The foil is this, that thou doft common grow.
That thou art blamed fhall not be thy defect,
For flander'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, flander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time;
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou prefent'st a pure, unstained prime.
Thou haft paff'd by the ambush of young days,
Either not affail'd, or victor being charged;
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy evermore enlarged:
If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show,
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
you fhall hear the furly fullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vileft 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 fo much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay;
Left the wife world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.
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