So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,

LXXIX. The prey of worms, my body being dead;

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,

My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;
Too base of thee to be remembered.
The worth of that, is that which it contains,

But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.

And my sick muse doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument

Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;
LXXV.

Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
So are you to my thoughts, as food to life,

He robs thee of, and pays it thee again. Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground; He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word And for the peace of you I hold such strife

From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give, As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found; And found it in thy cheek; he can afford Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon

No praise to thee but what in thee doth live. Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; Then thank him not for that which he doth say, Now counting best to be with you alone,

Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay. Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure : Some time all full with feasting on your sight,

LXXX. And by and by clean starved for a look

0, how I faint when I of you do write, Possessing or pursuing no delight,

Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, Save what is had or must from you be took.

And in the praise thereof spends all his might, Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,

To make me tongue-ty'd, speaking of your fame Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

But since your worth (wide, as the ocean is,)
LXXVI.

The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

My saucy bark, inferior far to his, Why is my verse so barren of new pride ?

On your broad main doth wilfnlly appear. So far from variation or quick change ?

Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, Why, with the time, do I not glance aside

Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride; To new-found methods and to compounds strange ? Or, being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat, Why write I still all one, ever the same,

He of tall building, and of goodly pride : And keep invention in a noted weed,

Then if he thrive, and I be cast away,
That every word doth almost tell my name;

The worst was this;—my love was my decay.
Shewing their birth, and where they did proceed ?
O know, sweet love, I always write of you,

LXXXI.
And you and love are still my argument; Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
So all my best is dressing old words new,

Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;
Spending again what is already spent :

From hence your memory death cannot take, For as the sun is daily new and old,

Although in me each part will be forgotten So is my love still telling what is told.

Your name from hence immortal life shall hare,

Though I, once gone, to all the world must die LXXVII.

The earth can yield me but a cominon grave, Thy glass will shew thee how thy beauties wear,

When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie. Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;

Your monument shall be my gentle verse, The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,

Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read; And of this book this learning may'st thou taste.

And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse, The wrinkles which thy glass will truly shew,

When all the breathers of this world are dead; Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;

You still shall live (such virtue hath my peo,) Thou by thy dial's shady stealth may'st know

Where breath most breathes-even in the mouths of
Time's thievish progress to eternity:
Look, what thy memory cannot contain,
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find

LXXXII
Those children nurs’d, deliver'd from thy brain, I grant thou wert not married to my muse,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

And therefore may'st without attaint o'er-look These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

The dedicated words which writers use Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.

Of their fair subject, blessing every book.

Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
LXXVIII.

Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;
So oft have I invok'd thee for my muse,

And therefore art enforc'd to seek anew And found such fair assistance in my verse,

Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days. As every alien pen hath got my use,

And do so, love ; yet when they have devis'd
And under tbee their poesy disperse.

What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Shine eyes, that taught the dumb, on high to sing, Thou truly fair wert truly sympathiz’d
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

In true plain words, by thy true-telling frieag; Have added feathers to the learned's wing,

And their gross painting might be better

us'd And given grace a double majesty.

Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee :

LXXXIII.
In others' works thou dost but mend the style, I never saw that you did painting need,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;

And therefore to your fair no painting set;
But thou art all my art, and dost advance

I found, or thought I found, you did exceed As high as learning ny rude ignorance.

1 The barren tender of a poet's debt:

men.

worse.

And therefore have I slept in your report,

Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then nut knowing, That you yourself, being extant, well might shew Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, clse mistaking; How far a modern quill doth come too short, So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow Comes home again, on better judgment making. This silence for my sip you did impute,

Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
Which shall be most my glory, being dumb; In sleep a king, but waking, no such matter.
For I impair not beauty, being mutė,
When others would give life, and bring a tomb.

LXXXVIII.
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes, When thou shalt be dispos’d to set me light,
Than both your poets can in praise devise.

And place my merit in the eye of Scorn,

Upon thy side against myself I'll fight,
LXXXIV.

(sworn.

And prove thee virtuous, though thou art for. Who is it that says most ? which can say more,

With mine own weakness being best acquainted, Than this rich praise that you alone are you ?

Upon thy part I can set down a story In whose confine immured is the store,

of faults conceal’d, wherein I am attainted; Which should example where your equal grew.

That thou, in losing me, shalt win much glory; Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,

And I by this will be a gainer too; That to his subject lends not some small glory;

For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, But he that writes of you, if he can tell

The injuries that to myself I do, That you are you, so dignifies his story,

Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me Let him but copy what in you is writ,

Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,

That for thy right myself will bear all wrong.
And such a counter-part shall fame his wit,
Making his style admired every where.

LXXXIX.
You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
Being fond on praise, which makes your praises And I will comment upon that offence:

Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:

Against thy reasons making no defence,
LXXXV.

Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill,
My tongue-ty'd muse in manners holds her still,

To set a form upon desired change, While comments of your praise, richly compila, As I'll myself disgrace: knowing thy will, Reserve their character with golden quill,

I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange ;

Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue
And precious phrase by all the muses fild.
I think good thoughts whilst others write good words

Thy sweet-beloved name no more shall dwell;

Lest 1 (too much profane) should do it wrong,
And, like unletter'd clerk, still cry Amen
To every hymn that able spirit affords,

And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
In polish'd form of well-refined pen.

For thee, against myself, l'Il vow debate, Hearing you prais’d, I say, 'tis so, 'tis true,

For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate. And to the most of praise add something more ;

Xc.
But that is in my thought, whose love to you,
Though words come hindmost, holds his rank Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever now:
before.

Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Then others for the breath of words respect, Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

And do not drop in, for an after-loss :

Ah! do not, when my heart hath scap'd this sorrow LXXXVI.

Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;

Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

To linger out a purpos'd overthrow, Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you, If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inherse,

When other petty griefs have done their spite, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? But in the onset come; so shall I taste Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write

At first the very worst of fortune's might; Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead ? And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, No, neither he, nor his compeers by night

Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost,

XCI.
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence;
As victors, of my silence cannot boast;

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,

Some in their wealth, some in their body's force, was not sick of any fear from thence.

Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill; But when your countenance fild up his line,

Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine.

horse ; LXXXVII.

And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,

Wherein it finds a joy above the rest;
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, But these particulars are not my measure,

And like enough thou know'st thy estimate : All these I better in one general best.
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing ; Thy love is better than high birth to me,
My bonds in thce are all determinate.

Řicher than wealth, prouder than garments' cost, For how au I hold thee but by thy granting? Of more delight than hawks or horses be;

And for that riches where is my deserving ? And having thee, of all men's pride I boast. The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, Wretched in this alone, that thou may'st tako

And so my patent back again is swerving. All this away, and me most wretched make

XCII.

As on the finger of a throned queen But do thy worst to steal thyself away,

The basest jewel will be well esteem'd; For term of life thou art assured mine;

So are those errors that in thee are seen, And life no longer than thy love will stay,

To truths translated, and for true things deem'd. For it depends upon that love of thine.

How many lambs might the stern wolf betray, Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,

If like a lamb he could his looks translate When in the leas, or them my life hath end.

How many gazers might'st thou lead away, I see a better state to me belongs

If thou would'st use the strength of all thy state. Than that which on thy bumour doth depend But do not so; I love thee in such sort, Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,

As thcu being mine, mine is thy good report. Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie. 0, what a happy title do I find,

XCVII. Happy to have thy love, happy to die !

How like a winter hath my absence been But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot ?

From thee, the pleasure of the feeting year! Thou may'st be false, and yet I know it not: What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen ?

What old December's bareness every where ! XCIII.

And yet this time remov'd! was summer's timc; So shall I live, supposing thou art true,

The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Like a deceived husband; so love's face

Bearing the wanton hurden of the prime, May still seem love to me, though alter'd-new;

Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease :

Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place :
For there can live no batred in thine eye,

But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.

For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, In many's looks the false heart's history

And, thou away, the very birds are mute; Is writ, in moods and frowns and

wrinkles sé rau ge; l'hat leaves look pale, dreading the wiater's near

Or, if they sing, 'tis mitb so dull a cheer, 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,

xcvin. Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness From you have I been absent in the spring, tell.

When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim, How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing; If thy sweet virtue answer not thy shew!

That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell XCIV.

Of different flowers in odour and in hue, They that have power to hurt and will do none,

Could make me any summer's story tell, That do not do the thing they most do shew,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,

grew: Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;

Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; And husband nature's riches from expense;

They were but sweet, but figures of delight, They are the lords and owners of their faces,

Drawn after you; you pattern of all those. Others but stewards of their excellence.

Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you, away,
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,

As with your shadow I with these did play.
Though to itself it only live and die ;
But if that flower with base infection meet,

XCIX.
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:

The forward violet thus did I chide;For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds : Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.

that smells,

If not from my love's breath ? The purple pride XCV

Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells,

In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd.
How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame, The lily I condemned for thy hand,
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,

And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair: Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!

The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, 0, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!

One blushing shame, another white despair; That tongue that tells the story of thy days, A third, nur red nor white, had stolen of both, Making lascivious comments on thy sport,

And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath; Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise ;

But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
O, what a mansion have those vices got,

A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
Which for their habitation chose out thee?
Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,

But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee.
And all things turn to fair that eyes can see !

C.
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lose his edge.

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long

To speak of that which gives thee all thy might! XCVI.

Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,

Darkening thy power, to lend base subjects light Some say, thy fault is youth, some wantonness; Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem

Some say, thy grace is youth, and gentle sport; In gentle numbers time so idly spent; Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less : Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,

Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort. And gives thy pen both skill and argument.

Rise, restive Muse, my love's sweet face survey,

CV. If Time have any wrinkle graven there ;

Let not my love be call'd idolatry,
If any, be a satire to decay,

Nor my beloved as an idol shew,
And make Time's spoils despised every where. Since all'alike my songs and praises be,
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life;

To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife.

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,

Still constant in a wondrous excellence ;
CI.

Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd,
O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends,

One thing expressing, leaves out difference. For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?

Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument, Both truth and beauty on my love depends ;

Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words, So dost thou too, and therein dignify'd.

And in this change is my invention spent, Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say, Three themes in one, which wondrous scope Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;

affords. Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;

Fair, kind, and true, have often lir'd alone, But best is best, if never intermix'd ?

Which three, till now, never kept seat in one. Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb ? Excuse not silence 80; for it lies in thee

CVI.
To make him much out-live a gilded tomb,

When in the chronicle of wasted time
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
To make him seem long hence as he shews now.

And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,

In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights, CII.

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in I see their antique pen would have express’d seeming;

Even such a beauty as you master now. I love not less, thoagh less the shew appear: So all their praises are but prophecies That love is merchandiz’d, whose rich esteeming Of this our time, all you prefiguring;

The owner's tongue doth publish every where. And for they look'd but with divining eyes, Our love was new, and then but in the spring, They had not skill enough your worth to sing .

When I was wont to greet it with my lays ; For we which now behold these present days, As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,

Have eves to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days;
Not that the summer is less pleasant now (night,

CVII.
Than when her mournful hymns did bush the Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
But that wild music burdens every bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. Can yet the lease of my true love control,

Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue,
Because I would not dull you with my song.

Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,
CIII.

And the sad augurs mock their own presage ;

Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd, Alack! what poverty my muse brings forth,

And peace proclaims olives of endless age. That having such a scope to shew her pride,

Now with the drops of this most balmy time The argument, all bare, is of more worth,

My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes Than when it hath my added praise beside.

Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, O, blame me not, if I no more can write !

While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes : Look in your glass, and there appears a face, And thou in this shalt find thy monument, That over-goes my blunt invention quite,

When tyrants' crests and combs of brass are spent.
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,

CVIII.
To mar the subject that before was well ?
For to no other pass my verses tend,

What's in the brain that ink may character, Than of your graces and your gifts to tell; Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit ? And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,

What's new to speak, what new to register, Your own glass shews you, when you look in it. That may express my love, or thy dear merit ?

Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine, CIV.

I must each day say o'er the very same; To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,

Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name. For as you were, when first your eye I ey'd,

So that eternal love in love's fresh case
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride; Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,

Weighs not the dust an injury of age,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,
In process of the seasons have I seen;

But makes antiquity for aye his page;
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,

Finding the first conceit of love there bred, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Where time and outward form would shew it dead. Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,

CIX.
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, O, never say that I was false of heart,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd: Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify.
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred, As easy might I from myself depart,
Ere you were born, was beauty's summer dead As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:

That is my home of love: if I have rang'd, For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
Like him that travels, I return again ;

The most sweet favour, or deformed'st creature,
Just to the time, not with the time exchang’d, - The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
So that myself bring water for my stain.

The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature Never believe, though in my nature reign'd Incapable of more, replete with you,

All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.
That it could so preposterously be stain’d,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;

CXIV.
Por nothing this wide universe I call,

Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery,

Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,
CX.

And that your love taught it this alchymy,
Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there,

To make, of monsters and things indigest, And made myself a motley to the view;

Such cherubims as your sweet self resemble ; Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most Creating every bad a perfect best, dear,

As fast as objects to his beams assemble ? -Made old offences of affections new :

0, 'tis the first; 'tis fattery in my seeing, Most trae it is, that I have look'd on truth

And my great mind most kingly drinks it up: Askance and strangely; but, by all above,

Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, These blenches gave my heart another youth,

And to his palate doth prepare the cup: And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.

If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin Now all is done, save what shall have no end :

That mine eye loves it, and doth first begin.
Mine appetite I never more will grind

CXV.
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A God in love, to whom I am confin'd.

Those lines that I before have writ, do lie,
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, Even those that said I could not love yon dearer:
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast. Yet then my judgment knew iro reason why

My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer CXI.

But reckoning time, whose million'd accidents O, for my sake do you with fortune chide,

Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,

Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide

Divert strong minds to the course of altering thiozs; Than public means, which public manners breeds. Alas! why, fearing of time's tyranny,

Might I not then say, now I love you best, Thence comes it that my name receives a brand ;

When I was certain o'er incertainty, And almost thence my nature is subdu'd

Crowning the present, doubting of the rest ? To what it works in, like the dyer's hand :

Love is a babe; then might I not say so, Pity me then, and wish I were renew'd;

To give full growth to that which still doth grow ?
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eysell, gainst my strong infection;

CXVI.
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,

Admit impediments. Love is not love, Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

Which alters when it alteration finds ;

Or bends, with the remover to remove :
CXII.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken ; Your love and pity doth the impression fill It is the star to every wandering bark,

Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow; Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be For what care I who calls me well or ill,

taken. So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow ? Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks You are my all-the-world, and I must strive

Within his bending sickle's compass come ; To know my shames and praises from your Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, tongue;

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. None else to me, nor I to none alive,

If this be error, and upon me prov'd, That my steel'd sense or changes, right or wrong. I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd. in so profound abysm I throw all care of others' voices, that my adder's sense

CXVII. To critic and to flatterer stopped are.

Accuse me thus; that I have scanted all Mark how with my neglect I do dispense :- Wherein I should your great deserts repay; You are so strongly in my purpose bred, l'hat all the world besides methinks they are dead. Forgot upon your dearest love to call,

Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

That I have frequent been with unknown minds, CXIII.

And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind; That I have hoisted sail to all the winds And that which governs me to go about,

Which should transport me farthest from your sight: Doth part his function, and is partly blind, Book both my wilfulness and errors down, Seems seeing, but effectually is out:

And on just proof, surmise accumulate, For it no form delivers to the heart

Bring me within the level of your frown, Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch; But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate : of his quick objects hath the mind no part, Since my appeal says, I did strive to prove

Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch; The constancy and virtue of your love