SO N N E T S.

I.

Pity the world, or else this glutton be, From fairest creatures we desire increase,

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. That thereby beauty's rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease,

II. His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, Feed'st thy light's tlame with self-substantial fuel, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held: Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament, Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies, And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days; Within thine own bud buriest thy content, To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding. Were an all-eating shame and thriltless praise.

How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer-“This fair child ot' 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.

But when from high-most pitch, with weary car
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, 'iore 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.

III.

VIII. Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest, Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? Now is the time that face should form another; Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy. Whose fresh repair it now thou not renewest, Why lov'st thou that which ihou receiv'st not Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

gladly? For where is she so duur whose unear'd womb Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy? Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry ?

If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, Or who is he so tond will be the tomb

By unions married, do oflend thine par, Of his seli-love, to stop posterity ?

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. Calls back the lovely April of her prime:

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.

Resembling sire and child and happy mother, But it thou live, remember'd not to be,

Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing: Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

Whose speechless song, being many, seeming

one, IV.

Sings this to thee, “thou single wilt prove one." Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?

IX.
Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
And being frank she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

That thou consum'st thyself in single life!
The bountcous largess given thee to give ?

Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die, Protitless usurer, why dost thou use

The world will wail thee, like a mateless wife,

The world will be thy widow, and still keep So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live? For having trallic with thyseli alone,

That thou no form of thee hast lett behind, Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.

When every private widow well may keer, Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,

By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind.

Look, what an unthrint in the world doth spend What acceptable audit canst thou leave ? The unus'd beauty must be tomb'd with thee,

Shiits but his place, for still the world enjoys it; Which, used, lives thy executor to be.

But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unus'd, the user so destroys it.

No love toward others in that bosom sits,
V.

That on himself'such murderous shame commits
Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,

X.
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;

For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any, For never-resting time leads summer on

Who for thyself art so unprovident.
To hideous winter, and contounds him there; Grant it thou wilt thou art belov'd of many,
Sap check'd with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,

But that thou none lov'st is most evident; Beauty o'ersnow'd, and bareness everywhere: For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate, Then, were not summer's distillation lett, That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire, A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,

Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate, Beanty's eilect with beauty were bereit,

Which to repair should be thy chief desire. Norit, nor no remembrance what it was.

( change thy thought, that I may change my mind! But tlowers distiil'd, though they with winter Shall hate be tairer lody'd than gentle love? meet,

Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind, Leesel but their show; their substance still lives Or to thyself, at least, kind-hearted prove; sweet.

Make thee another selt, for love of me,

That beauty still may live in thine or thee. VI. Then let not winter's ragged hand deface

XI. In thee thy suminer, ere thou be distilla:

As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st Make sweet some phial; treasure thou some place in one of thine, from that which ihou departest; With beauty's treasure, cre it be self-hill'd.

And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st, That use is not forbidden usury,

Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth conWhich happies those that pay the willing loan;

vertest. That's for thyself to breed another thee,

Herein lives wisdom, beanty, and increase; Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

Without this, tolly, age, and coid decay: Ten times thyseli were happier than thou art,

If all were minded so the times should cease, If ten ot'thinë ten times refigur'd thee:

And threescore years would make the world away. Then what could death do if thou shouldst de

Let those whom Nature hath not made for store, part,

Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish: Leaving thee living in posterity ?

Look whom she best endow'd, she gave thee more; Be not seli-wili'd, for thou art much too fair

Which bounteous gilt thou shouldst in bounty To be Death s conquest, and make worins thine

cherish; heir.

She carv'd thee for her scal, and meant thereby

Thou shouldst print more, nor let that copy die VII. Lo, in the orient when the gracious light

XII. Litts up his burning head, each under eye

When I do count the clock that tells the time, Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; Serving with looks his sacred majesty;

When I behold the violet past prime, And having climb'd the siecp-up heavenly hill,

And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

When loily trees I see barren of leaves, Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;

And summer's greci all sirded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with winite and bristly beard;

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

| And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage, That thou among the wastes of time must go, And stretched metre of an antique song: Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake, But were some child of yours alive that time, And die as fast as they see others grow;

You should live twice;-in it, and in my rhyme And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make de

fence, Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

XVIII.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
XIII.

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do share the darling buds of May, O that you were yourself! but, love, you are

And summer's lease bath all 100 short a date : No longer yours, than you yourself here live:

Sometiine too hot the eye of Heaven shines, Against this coming end you should prepare,

And often is his gold complexion dimmid; And your sweet semblance to some other give.

And every fair from fair sometime declines, So should that beauty which you hold in lease

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm’d; Find No determination: then you were

But thy eternal summer shall not iade, Yourself again, after yourself's decease,

Nor lose possession of that hair thou owest; When your sweet issue your sweet form shall bear.

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest; Which husbandry in honor might ụphold

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, Against the stormy gusts of winter's day,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. And barren rage of death's eternal cold?' 0! none but unthrifts:-Dear my love, you know

XIX. You had a father; let your son say so.

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws, XIV.

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood, Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, And yet methinks I have astronomy,

And burn the long-liv'd phanix in her blood; But not to tell of good or evil luck,

Make glad and sorry seasons, as thou fleet'st» Of plagues, of dearths, or season's quality.

And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-tooted Time, Nor can I fortune to brief minutes iell,

To the wide world, and all her fading sweets; Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime: Or say with princes if it shall go well,

O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow

Nor draw no lines there with ihine antique pen; By oil predict that I in heaven tind: Bút from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,

Him in thy course untainted do allow, And (constant stars) in them I read such art

For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. As truth and beauty shall together thrive,

Yet, do ihy worst, old Time; despise thy wrong, If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert:

My love shall in my verse ever live young. Or else of thee this I prognosticate, Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

XX.

A woman's face, with nature's own hand painted, XV.

Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; When I consider every thing that grows

A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted Holds in perfection but a little moment,

With shifting change, as is false women's fashion; That this huge state presenteth nought but shows

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in Whereon the stars in secret intluence comment;

rolling, When I perceive that men as plants increase,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; Cheer'd and check'd even by the self-same sky;

A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,

Which steals men's eyes, and women's souls And wear their brave state out of memory;

amazeth. Then the conceit of this inconstant stay

And for a woman wert thou first created; Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

Till nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, Where wasteful time debateth with decay,

And by addition me of thee defeated, To change your day of youth to sullied night;

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. And, all in war with Time, for love of you,

But since she prick'd thee out for women's As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

pleasure,

Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure.
XVI.

XXI.
But wherefore do not you a mightier way.
Make war upon this bloody ty rant, Time?

So is it not with me as with that muse,
And fortify yourself in your decay

Stirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse; With means more blessed than my barren rhyme? Who heaven itself for ornament doth use, Now stand you on the top of happy hours;

And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, And many maiden gardens, yet unset,

Making a couplement of proud cmpare, With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers, With sun and moon, with earth and soa's rich Much liker than your painted counterfeit:

gems, So should the lines of life that life repair,

With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,

That heaven's air in his huge rondures hems. Neither in inward worth, nor outward fair,2

O let me, true in love, but truly write,
Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.

And then believe me, my love is as fail
To give away yourselt keeps yourself still; As any mother's child, though not so bright
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet

As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:
skill.

Let them say more that like of hearsay well;

I will not praise, that purpose not to sell.
XVII.

XXII.
Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were till'd with your most high deserts? My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
Though yet, Heaven knows, it is but as a tomb So long as youth and thou are of onc date;
Which hides your life, and shows not half your But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
parts.

Then look I death my days should expiate.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,

For all that beauty that doth cover thee And in fresh numbers number all your graces, Is but the seemiy raiment of my heart, The age to come would say, this poet lies, Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me; Such heavenly touches, ne'er touch'd earthly faces. How can I then be elder than thou art? So should my papers, yellow'd with their age, O theretore, love, be of thyself so wary Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue; As I not for myself but for thee will; 2 Beauty.

798

Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

For thee, and for myseli, no quiet tind.
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
Thou gav'st me thine, not to give back again.

XXVIII.
XXIII.

How can I then return in happy plight,

That am debarr'd the benefit of rest? As an unperfect actor on the stage,

When day's oppression is not eas'd by night. Who with his fear is put beside his part,

But day by night and night by day oppress'd? Or some tierce thing replete with too much rage, And cach, though enemies to either's reign, Whose strength's abundance weakens his own Do in consent shake hands to torture me, heart;

The one by toil, the other to complain So I, for fear of trust, forget to say

How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,

I tell the day, to please him, thou art bright,
And în mine own love's strength seem to decay, And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven.
O'ercharg'd with burthen of mine own love's might. So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night;
( let my books be then the eloquence

When sparkling stars twire not, thou gild'st the
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast;

even. Who plead for love, and look for recompence

But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, More than that tongue that more hath more ex- And night doth nightly make grief's length seem press'd,

stronger.
Olcarn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

XXIX.
XXIV.

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,
Mine eye hath play'd the painter, and hath stelld And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, And perspective it is best painter's art.

Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, For through the painter you must see his skill, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, To find where your true image pictur'd lies, With what I most enjoy contented least; Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still, Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes. Haply I think on thee,--and then my state Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done; (Like to the lark at break of day arising Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate, Ace windows to my breast, where-through the sun For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;

brings, Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art, That then I scorn to change my state with kings They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

XXX.
XXV.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
Let those who are in favor with their stars,

I summon up remembrance of things past, Of public honor and proud titles boast,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste. Unlook'd-for joy in that I honor most.

Then can I drown an eye unus'd to flow, Great princes' favorites their fair leaves spread For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, But as the marigold at the sun's eye;

And weep afresh love's long-since cancell'd woe, And in themselves their pride lies buried,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight. For at a frown they in their glory die.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, The painful warrior famoused for fight,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er After a thousand victories once foil'd,

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Is from the book of honor razed quite,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd :

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
Then happy I, that love and am beloved,

All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end.
Where I may not remove, nor be removed.

XXXI.
XXVI.

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,

And there reigns love, and all love's loving parts,
To thee I send this written embassage,

And all those friends which I thought buried.
To witness duty, not to show my wit.

How many a holy and obsequious tear
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine

Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye,
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it; As interest of the dead, which now appear
But that I hope some good conceit of thine

But things remov'd, that hidden in thee lie!
In my soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it: Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving, Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,

Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
And puts apparel on iny tattered loving,

That due of many now is thine alone:
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:

Their images I lov'd I view in thee,
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee, And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.
Till then, not show my head where thou mayst
prove me.

XXXII.
XXVII.

If thou survive my well-contented day,

When that churl Death my bones with dust shall
Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
But then begins a journey in my head,

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
To work my mind, when body's work's expird : Compare them with the bettering of the time;
For then my thoughts (from far where I abide) And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, And keep my drooping eye-lids open wide, Exceeded by the height of happier men. Looking on darkness which the blind do see : o then vouchsafe me but this joving thought! Save that my soul's imaginary sight

“Had my friend's muse grown with this growing Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,

A dearer birth than this his love had brought, Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.

To march in ranks of better equipage:

cover,

age,

verse

But since he died, and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love."

XXXVIII.

How can my muse want subject to invent,
XXXIII.

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, .

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

For every vulgar paper to rehearse? Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy:

0, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight; With ugly rack on his celestial face,

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee, And from the forlorn world his visage hide,

When thou thyself dost give invention light?

Be thou the tenth muse, ten times more in worth Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: Even so my sun one early morn did shine,

Than those old nine, which rhymers invocate; With all triumphant splendor on my brow;

And he that calls on thee, let hin bring forth But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,

Eternal numbers to outlive long date. The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.

If my slight muse do please these curious days, Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise. Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.

XXXIX.
XXXIV.

0, how thy worth with manners may I sing,

When thou art all the better part of me? Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day, What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? And make me travel forth without my cloak, And what is't but mine own when I praise thee? To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,

Even for this let us divided live, Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?

And our dear love lose name of single one, "Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break, That by this separation I may give To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

That due to thee, which thou deserv'st alone. For nó man well of such a salve can speak,

() absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove, That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace: Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief: To entertain the time with thoughts of love, Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss :

(Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,) The otlender's sorrow lends but weak relief

And that thou teachest how to make one twain, To him that bears the strong offence's cross.

By praising him here, who doth hence remain. Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,

XL. And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.

Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all; XXXV.

What hast thou then more than thou hadst

before? No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done: Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;

No love, my love, that thou may'st true love call; Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more. And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

Then if for my love thou my love receivest, All men make faults, and even I in this,

I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest; Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

But yet be blam’d, if thou thyself deceivest Myselt corrupting, salving thy amiss, 4

By wilful taste of what thyself refusest. Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:

I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty ; (Thy adverse party is thy advocate,)

And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief And 'gainst myselia lawful plea commence;

To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury. Such civil war is in my love and hate,

Lascivious grace, in whom all ill vell shows, That I an accessory needs must be

Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes. To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

XLI.
XXXVI.

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
Let me confess that we two must be twain,

When I am sometime absent from thy heart, Although our undivided loves are one:

Thy beauty and thy fears full well befits, So shall those blots that do with me remain,

For still temptation follows where thou art.

Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,

Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;
Though in our lives a separable spite,

And when a woman woos, what woman's son Which though it alter not love's sole éffect,

Will sourly leave her till she have prevail'd ? Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.

Ah me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear, I may not evermore acknowledge thee,

And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,

Who lead thee in their riot even there Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame:

Where thou art forced to break a two-fold truth. Nor thou with public kindness honor me, Unless thou take that honor from thy name:

Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee, But do not so; I love thee in such sort,

Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

XLII.
XXXVII.

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
As a decrepit father takes delight

And yet it may be said I lov'd her dearly; To see his active child do deeds of youth,

That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief, So, I made lame by fortune's dearest spite,

A loss in love that touches me more nearly. Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth; Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:, For whether beauty, birth, or wealth or wit, Thou dost love her, because thou knew'st I love Or any of these all, or all, or more,

her; Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,

And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, I make my love engrafted to this store,

Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her. So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd,

If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain, Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give, And, losing her, my friend hath found that loss ; That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,

Both find each other, and I lose both twain, And by a part of all thy glory live.

And both for my sake lay on me this cross; Look what is best, that best I wish in thee; But here's the joy; my friend and I are one; This wish I have; then ten times happy me. Sweet Hattery! then she loves but me alone. • Fault.

• Because.

a