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IX.

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
That thou confumeft thyself in single life?
Ah! if thou iffueless 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 haft 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 ftill 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 bofom fits

That on himself fuch murderous fhame commits.

X.

For fhame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,
Who for thyself art fo unprovident.

Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lovest is most evident;
For thou art fo poffeff'd with murderous hate
That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

Which to repair should be thy chief defire.

O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?

Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove :
Make thee another felf, for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

XI.

As faft 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'ft
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth con-
Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase; [vertest.
Without this, folly, age and cold decay :

If all were minded fo, the times fhould cease
And threescore year would make the world away.
Let those whom Nature hath not made for ftore,
Harsh, featureless and rude, barrenly perish :
Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldft in bounty cherish:
She carved thee for her feal, and meant thereby
Thou shouldft print more, nor let that copy die.

XII.

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day funk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,

And fable curls all filver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I fee barren of leaves,
Which erft from heat did canopy the herd,
And fummer's green all girded up in fheaves,
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 fweets and beauties do themselves forfake
And die as fast as they fee others grow;

[fence

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make deSave breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

XIII.

O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to fome other give:
So fhould that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were

Yourself again, after yourself's decease,

When your fweet iffue your fweet form fhould bear.
Who lets fo fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold
Against the stormy gufts 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.

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