Shakespeare William. The Sonnets

   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.
 

62

   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 my self mine own worth do define,
   As I all other in all worths surmount.
   But when my glass shows me my self indeed
   beated and chopt with tanned antiquity,
   Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:
   Self, so self-loving were iniquity.
   'Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,
   Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
 

63

   Against my love shall be as I am now
   With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn,
   When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
   With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn
   Hath travelled 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.
 

64

   When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
   The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,
   When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,
   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 it self 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.
 

65

   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 batt'ring 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.
 

66 

   Tired with all these for restful death I cry,
   As to behold desert a beggar born,
   And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
   And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
   And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
   And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
   And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
   And strength by limping sway disabled
   And art made tongue-tied by authority,
   And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
   And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
   And captive good attending captain ill.
   Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
   Save that to die, I leave my love alone.
 

67

   Ah wherefore with infection should he live,
   And with his presence grace impiety,
   That sin by him advantage should achieve,
   And lace it self with his society? 
   Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
   And steal 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,
   Beggared 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.
 

68

   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, it self 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.
 

69

   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 crowned,
   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.
 

70

   That thou art blamed 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 wooed 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 assailed, or victor being charged,
   Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
   To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,
   If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,
   Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.
 

71 

   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.
 

72

   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.
 

73

   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 ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
   In me thou seest 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 seest the glowing of such fire,
   That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
   As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
   Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
   This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
   To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
 

74

   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.
 

75

   So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
   Or as sweet-seasoned 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 bettered 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.
 

76 

   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.
 

77

   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, delivered 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.
 

78

   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.
 

79

   Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
   My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
   But now my gracious numbers are decayed,
   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 thy self dost pay.
 

80

   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 wrecked) 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.
 

81 

   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.
 

82

   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 devised,
   What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
   Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,
   In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.
   And their gross painting might be better used,
   Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.
 

83

   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 your self 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.
 

84

   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.
 

85

   My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,
   While comments of your praise richly compiled,
   Reserve their character with golden quill,
   And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
   I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,
   And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,
   To every hymn that able spirit affords,
   In polished 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.
 

86 

   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 filled up his line,
   Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.
 

87

   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.
 

88

   When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
   And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
   Upon thy side, against my self 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 concealed, 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 my self I do,
   Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
   Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
   That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.
 

89

   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 my self 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 wronk:
   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.
 

90

   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 'scaped this sorrow,
   Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,
   Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
   To linger out a purposed 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,
   Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.
 

91 

   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.
 

92

   But do thy worst to steal thy self 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.
 

93

   So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
   Like a deceived husband, so love's face,
   May still seem love to me, though altered 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.
 

94

   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,
   Tibey 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 it self, 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.
 

95

   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-used doth lose his edge.
 

96 

   Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
   Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,
   Both grace and faults are loved 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 esteemed:
   So are those errors that in thee are seen,
   To truths translated, and for true things deemed.
   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.
 

97

   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 widowed wombs after their lords' decease:
   Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
   But hope of orphans, and unfathered 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.
 

98

   From you have I been absent in the spring,
   When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)
   Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:
   That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped 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 seemed it winter still, and you away,
   As with your shadow I with these did play.
 

99

   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 check for complexion dwells,
   In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
   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 annexed 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.
 

100

   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 everywhere.
   Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
   So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife.
 

101

   O truant Muse what shall be thy amends,
   For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
   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 fixed,
   Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:
   But best is best, if never intermixed'?
   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 praised of ages yet to be.
   Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,
   To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.
 

102

   My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,
   I love not less, though less the show appear,
   That love is merchandized, 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.
 

103

   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.
 

104

   To me fair friend you never can be old,
   For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
   Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold,
   Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
   Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,
   In process of the seasons have I seen,
   Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
   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 perceived,
   So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand 
   Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.
   For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,
   Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
 

105

   Let not my love be called 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 confined,
   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 lived alone.
   Which three till now, never kept seat in one.
 

106

   When in the chronicle of wasted time,
   I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
   And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
   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 expressed,
   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.
 

107

   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 confined doom.
   The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
   And the sad augurs mock their own presage,
   Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
   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 rhyme,
   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.
 

108

   What's in the brain that ink may character,
   Which hath not figured 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 hallowed 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.
 

109

   O never say that I was false of heart,
   Though absence seemed 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 ranged,
   Like him that travels I return again,
   Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
   So that my self bring water for my stain,
   Never believe though in my nature reigned,
   All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
   That it could so preposterously be stained, 
   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.
 

110

   Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
   And made my self a motley to the view,
   Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
   Made old offences of affections new.
   Most true it is, that I have looked on truth
   Askance and strangely: but by all above,
   These blenches gave my heart another youth,
   And worse essays proved thee my best of love.
   Now all is done, have 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 confined.
   Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
   Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.
 

111

   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 subdued
   To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
   Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,
   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.
 

112

   Your love and pity doth th' impression fill,
   Which vulgar scandal stamped 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 steeled 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.
 

113

   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.
 

114

   Or whether doth my mind being crowned 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 poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,
   That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
 

115

   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 millioned 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 alt'ring 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.
 

116

   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 wand'ring 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 proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
 

117

   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-purchased 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 wakened hate:
   Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
   The constancy and virtue of your love.
 

118

   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 diseased ere that there was true needing.
   Thus policy in love t' anticipate
   The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
   And brought to medicine a healthful state
   Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.
   But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
   Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you.
 

119

   What potions have I drunk of Siren tears
   Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
   Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
   Still losing when I saw my self to win!
   What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
   Whilst it hath thought it self 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 ruined love when it is built anew 
   Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
   So I return rebuked to my content,
   And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.
 

120

   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 hammered steel.
   For if you were by my unkindness shaken
   As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time,
   And I a tyrant have no leisure taken
   To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
   O that our night of woe might have remembered
   My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
   And soon to you, as you to me then tendered
   The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
   But that your trespass now becomes a fee,
   Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
 

121

   'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
   When not to be, receives reproach of being,
   And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,
   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.
 

122

   Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
   Full charactered 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 razed oblivion yield his part
   Of thee, thy record never can be missed:
   That poor retention could not so much hold,