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 <h2>THE SONNETS</h2>
 <p>                    <b>1</b><br/><br/>
 From fairest creatures we desire increase,<br/>
 That thereby beauty's rose might never die,<br/>
 But as the riper should by time decease,<br/>
 His tender heir might bear his memory:<br/>
 But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,<br/>
 Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,<br/>
 Making a famine where abundance lies,<br/>
 Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:<br/>
 Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,<br/>
 And only herald to the gaudy spring,<br/>
 Within thine own bud buriest thy content,<br/>
 And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:<br/>
    Pity the world, or else this glutton be,<br/>
    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>2</b><br/><br/>
 When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,<br/>
 And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,<br/>
 Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,<br/>
 Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:<br/>
 Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,<br/>
 Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;<br/>
 To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,<br/>
 Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.<br/>
 How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,<br/>
 If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine<br/>
 Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'<br/>
 Proving his beauty by succession thine.<br/>
    This were to be new made when thou art old,<br/>
    And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>3</b><br/><br/>
 Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,<br/>
 Now is the time that face should form another,<br/>
 Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,<br/>
 Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.<br/>
 For where is she so fair whose uneared womb<br/>
 Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?<br/>
 Or who is he so fond will be the tomb<br/>
 Of his self-love to stop posterity?<br/>
 Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee<br/>
 Calls back the lovely April of her prime,<br/>
 So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,<br/>
 Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.<br/>
    But if thou live remembered not to be,<br/>
    Die single and thine image dies with thee.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>4</b><br/><br/>
 Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,<br/>
 Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?<br/>
 Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,<br/>
 And being frank she lends to those are free:<br/>
 Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,<br/>
 The bounteous largess given thee to give?<br/>
 Profitless usurer why dost thou use<br/>
 So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?<br/>
 For having traffic with thy self alone,<br/>
 Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,<br/>
 Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,<br/>
 What acceptable audit canst thou leave?<br/>
    Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,<br/>
    Which used lives th' executor to be.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>5</b><br/><br/>
 Those hours that with gentle work did frame<br/>
 The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell<br/>
 Will play the tyrants to the very same,<br/>
 And that unfair which fairly doth excel:<br/>
 For never-resting time leads summer on<br/>
 To hideous winter and confounds him there,<br/>
 Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,<br/>
 Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:<br/>
 Then were not summer's distillation left<br/>
 A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,<br/>
 Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,<br/>
 Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.<br/>
    But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,<br/>
    Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>6</b><br/><br/>
 Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,<br/>
 In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:<br/>
 Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,<br/>
 With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed:<br/>
 That use is not forbidden usury,<br/>
 Which happies those that pay the willing loan;<br/>
 That's for thy self to breed another thee,<br/>
 Or ten times happier be it ten for one,<br/>
 Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,<br/>
 If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:<br/>
 Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,<br/>
 Leaving thee living in posterity?<br/>
    Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair,<br/>
    To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>7</b><br/><br/>
 Lo in the orient when the gracious light<br/>
 Lifts up his burning head, each under eye<br/>
 Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,<br/>
 Serving with looks his sacred majesty,<br/>
 And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,<br/>
 Resembling strong youth in his middle age,<br/>
 Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,<br/>
 Attending on his golden pilgrimage:<br/>
 But when from highmost pitch with weary car,<br/>
 Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,<br/>
 The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are<br/>
 From his low tract and look another way:<br/>
    So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:<br/>
    Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>8</b><br/><br/>
 Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?<br/>
 Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:<br/>
 Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,<br/>
 Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?<br/>
 If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,<br/>
 By unions married do offend thine ear,<br/>
 They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds<br/>
 In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:<br/>
 Mark how one string sweet husband to another,<br/>
 Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;<br/>
 Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,<br/>
 Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:<br/>
    Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,<br/>
    Sings this to thee, 'Thou single wilt prove none'.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>9</b><br/><br/>
 Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,<br/>
 That thou consum'st thy self in single life?<br/>
 Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,<br/>
 The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,<br/>
 The world will be thy widow and still weep,<br/>
 That thou no form of thee hast left behind,<br/>
 When every private widow well may keep,<br/>
 By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:<br/>
 Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend<br/>
 Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;<br/>
 But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,<br/>
 And kept unused the user so destroys it:<br/>
    No love toward others in that bosom sits<br/>
    That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>10</b><br/><br/>
 For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any<br/>
 Who for thy self art so unprovident.<br/>
 Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,<br/>
 But that thou none lov'st is most evident:<br/>
 For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate,<br/>
 That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,<br/>
 Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate<br/>
 Which to repair should be thy chief desire:<br/>
 O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,<br/>
 Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?<br/>
 Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,<br/>
 Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,<br/>
    Make thee another self for love of me,<br/>
    That beauty still may live in thine or thee.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>11</b><br/><br/>
 As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st,<br/>
 In one of thine, from that which thou departest,<br/>
 And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,<br/>
 Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,<br/>
 Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,<br/>
 Without this folly, age, and cold decay,<br/>
 If all were minded so, the times should cease,<br/>
 And threescore year would make the world away:<br/>
 Let those whom nature hath not made for store,<br/>
 Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:<br/>
 Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;<br/>
 Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:<br/>
    She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,<br/>
    Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>12</b><br/><br/>
 When I do count the clock that tells the time,<br/>
 And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,<br/>
 When I behold the violet past prime,<br/>
 And sable curls all silvered o'er with white:<br/>
 When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,<br/>
 Which erst from heat did canopy the herd<br/>
 And summer's green all girded up in sheaves<br/>
 Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:<br/>
 Then of thy beauty do I question make<br/>
 That thou among the wastes of time must go,<br/>
 Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,<br/>
 And die as fast as they see others grow,<br/>
    And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence<br/>
    Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>13</b><br/><br/>
 O that you were your self, but love you are<br/>
 No longer yours, than you your self here live,<br/>
 Against this coming end you should prepare,<br/>
 And your sweet semblance to some other give.<br/>
 So should that beauty which you hold in lease<br/>
 Find no determination, then you were<br/>
 Your self again after your self's decease,<br/>
 When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.<br/>
 Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,<br/>
 Which husbandry in honour might uphold,<br/>
 Against the stormy gusts of winter's day<br/>
 And barren rage of death's eternal cold?<br/>
    O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,<br/>
    You had a father, let your son say so.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>14</b><br/><br/>
 Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,<br/>
 And yet methinks I have astronomy,<br/>
 But not to tell of good, or evil luck,<br/>
 Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality,<br/>
 Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;<br/>
 Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,<br/>
 Or say with princes if it shall go well<br/>
 By oft predict that I in heaven find.<br/>
 But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,<br/>
 And constant stars in them I read such art<br/>
 As truth and beauty shall together thrive<br/>
 If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:<br/>
    Or else of thee this I prognosticate,<br/>
    Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>15</b><br/><br/>
 When I consider every thing that grows<br/>
 Holds in perfection but a little moment.<br/>
 That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows<br/>
 Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.<br/>
 When I perceive that men as plants increase,<br/>
 Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:<br/>
 Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,<br/>
 And wear their brave state out of memory.<br/>
 Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,<br/>
 Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,<br/>
 Where wasteful time debateth with decay<br/>
 To change your day of youth to sullied night,<br/>
    And all in war with Time for love of you,<br/>
    As he takes from you, I engraft you new.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>16</b><br/><br/>
 But wherefore do not you a mightier way<br/>
 Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?<br/>
 And fortify your self in your decay<br/>
 With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?<br/>
 Now stand you on the top of happy hours,<br/>
 And many maiden gardens yet unset,<br/>
 With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,<br/>
 Much liker than your painted counterfeit:<br/>
 So should the lines of life that life repair<br/>
 Which this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen<br/>
 Neither in inward worth nor outward fair<br/>
 Can make you live your self in eyes of men.<br/>
    To give away your self, keeps your self still,<br/>
    And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>17</b><br/><br/>
 Who will believe my verse in time to come<br/>
 If it were filled with your most high deserts?<br/>
 Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb<br/>
 Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:<br/>
 If I could write the beauty of your eyes,<br/>
 And in fresh numbers number all your graces,<br/>
 The age to come would say this poet lies,<br/>
 Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.<br/>
 So should my papers (yellowed with their age)<br/>
 Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,<br/>
 And your true rights be termed a poet's rage,<br/>
 And stretched metre of an antique song.<br/>
    But were some child of yours alive that time,<br/>
    You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>18</b><br/><br/>
 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?<br/>
 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:<br/>
 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,<br/>
 And summer's lease hath all too short a date:<br/>
 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,<br/>
 And often is his gold complexion dimmed,<br/>
 And every fair from fair sometime declines,<br/>
 By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:<br/>
 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,<br/>
 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,<br/>
 Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,<br/>
 When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,<br/>
    So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,<br/>
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>19</b><br/><br/>
 Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,<br/>
 And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,<br/>
 Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,<br/>
 And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,<br/>
 Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,<br/>
 And do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time<br/>
 To the wide world and all her fading sweets:<br/>
 But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,<br/>
 O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,<br/>
 Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,<br/>
 Him in thy course untainted do allow,<br/>
 For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.<br/>
    Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,<br/>
    My love shall in my verse ever live young.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>20</b><br/><br/>
 A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,<br/>
 Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,<br/>
 A woman's gentle heart but not acquainted<br/>
 With shifting change as is false women's fashion,<br/>
 An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:<br/>
 Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,<br/>
 A man in hue all hues in his controlling,<br/>
 Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.<br/>
 And for a woman wert thou first created,<br/>
 Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,<br/>
 And by addition me of thee defeated,<br/>
 By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.<br/>
    But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,<br/>
    Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>21</b><br/><br/>
 So is it not with me as with that muse,<br/>
 Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,<br/>
 Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,<br/>
 And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,<br/>
 Making a couplement of proud compare<br/>
 With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems:<br/>
 With April's first-born flowers and all things rare,<br/>
 That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.<br/>
 O let me true in love but truly write,<br/>
 And then believe me, my love is as fair,<br/>
 As any mother's child, though not so bright<br/>
 As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:<br/>
    Let them say more that like of hearsay well,<br/>
    I will not praise that purpose not to sell.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>22</b><br/><br/>
 My glass shall not persuade me I am old,<br/>
 So long as youth and thou are of one date,<br/>
 But when in thee time's furrows I behold,<br/>
 Then look I death my days should expiate.<br/>
 For all that beauty that doth cover thee,<br/>
 Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,<br/>
 Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,<br/>
 How can I then be elder than thou art?<br/>
 O therefore love be of thyself so wary,<br/>
 As I not for my self, but for thee will,<br/>
 Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary<br/>
 As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.<br/>
    Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,<br/>
    Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>23</b><br/><br/>
 As an unperfect actor on the stage,<br/>
 Who with his fear is put beside his part,<br/>
 Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,<br/>
 Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;<br/>
 So I for fear of trust, forget to say,<br/>
 The perfect ceremony of love's rite,<br/>
 And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,<br/>
 O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might:<br/>
 O let my looks be then the eloquence,<br/>
 And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,<br/>
 Who plead for love, and look for recompense,<br/>
 More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.<br/>
    O learn to read what silent love hath writ,<br/>
    To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>24</b><br/><br/>
 Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,<br/>
 Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,<br/>
 My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,<br/>
 And perspective it is best painter's art.<br/>
 For through the painter must you see his skill,<br/>
 To find where your true image pictured lies,<br/>
 Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,<br/>
 That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:<br/>
 Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,<br/>
 Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me<br/>
 Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun<br/>
 Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;<br/>
    Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,<br/>
    They draw but what they see, know not the heart.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>25</b><br/><br/>
 Let those who are in favour with their stars,<br/>
 Of public honour and proud titles boast,<br/>
 Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars<br/>
 Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;<br/>
 Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread,<br/>
 But as the marigold at the sun's eye,<br/>
 And in themselves their pride lies buried,<br/>
 For at a frown they in their glory die.<br/>
 The painful warrior famoused for fight,<br/>
 After a thousand victories once foiled,<br/>
 Is from the book of honour razed quite,<br/>
 And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:<br/>
    Then happy I that love and am beloved<br/>
    Where I may not remove nor be removed.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>26</b><br/><br/>
 Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage<br/>
 Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;<br/>
 To thee I send this written embassage<br/>
 To witness duty, not to show my wit.<br/>
 Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine<br/>
 May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;<br/>
 But that I hope some good conceit of thine<br/>
 In thy soul's thought (all naked) will bestow it:<br/>
 Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,<br/>
 Points on me graciously with fair aspect,<br/>
 And puts apparel on my tattered loving,<br/>
 To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,<br/>
    Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,<br/>
    Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>27</b><br/><br/>
 Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,<br/>
 The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,<br/>
 But then begins a journey in my head<br/>
 To work my mind, when body's work's expired.<br/>
 For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)<br/>
 Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,<br/>
 And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,<br/>
 Looking on darkness which the blind do see.<br/>
 Save that my soul's imaginary sight<br/>
 Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,<br/>
 Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)<br/>
 Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.<br/>
    Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,<br/>
    For thee, and for my self, no quiet find.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>28</b><br/><br/>
 How can I then return in happy plight<br/>
 That am debarred the benefit of rest?<br/>
 When day's oppression is not eased by night,<br/>
 But day by night and night by day oppressed.<br/>
 And each (though enemies to either's reign)<br/>
 Do in consent shake hands to torture me,<br/>
 The one by toil, the other to complain<br/>
 How far I toil, still farther off from thee.<br/>
 I tell the day to please him thou art bright,<br/>
 And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:<br/>
 So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,<br/>
 When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.<br/>
    But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,<br/>
    And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>29</b><br/><br/>
 When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,<br/>
 I all alone beweep my outcast state,<br/>
 And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,<br/>
 And look upon my self and curse my fate,<br/>
 Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,<br/>
 Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,<br/>
 Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,<br/>
 With what I most enjoy contented least,<br/>
 Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,<br/>
 Haply I think on thee, and then my state,<br/>
 (Like to the lark at break of day arising<br/>
 From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,<br/>
    For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,<br/>
    That then I scorn to change my state with kings.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>30</b><br/><br/>
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,<br/>
 I summon up remembrance of things past,<br/>
 I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,<br/>
 And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:<br/>
 Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)<br/>
 For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,<br/>
 And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,<br/>
 And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.<br/>
 Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,<br/>
 And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er<br/>
 The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,<br/>
 Which I new pay as if not paid before.<br/>
    But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)<br/>
    All losses are restored, and sorrows end.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>31</b><br/><br/>
 Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,<br/>
 Which I by lacking have supposed dead,<br/>
 And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,<br/>
 And all those friends which I thought buried.<br/>
 How many a holy and obsequious tear<br/>
 Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,<br/>
 As interest of the dead, which now appear,<br/>
 But things removed that hidden in thee lie.<br/>
 Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,<br/>
 Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,<br/>
 Who all their parts of me to thee did give,<br/>
 That due of many, now is thine alone.<br/>
    Their images I loved, I view in thee,<br/>
    And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>32</b><br/><br/>
 If thou survive my well-contented day,<br/>
 When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover<br/>
 And shalt by fortune once more re-survey<br/>
 These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:<br/>
 Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,<br/>
 And though they be outstripped by every pen,<br/>
 Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,<br/>
 Exceeded by the height of happier men.<br/>
 O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,<br/>
 'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,<br/>
 A dearer birth than this his love had brought<br/>
 To march in ranks of better equipage:<br/>
    But since he died and poets better prove,<br/>
    Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>33</b><br/><br/>
 Full many a glorious morning have I seen,<br/>
 Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,<br/>
 Kissing with golden face the meadows green;<br/>
 Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:<br/>
 Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,<br/>
 With ugly rack on his celestial face,<br/>
 And from the forlorn world his visage hide<br/>
 Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:<br/>
 Even so my sun one early morn did shine,<br/>
 With all triumphant splendour on my brow,<br/>
 But out alack, he was but one hour mine,<br/>
 The region cloud hath masked him from me now.<br/>
    Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,<br/>
    Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>34</b><br/><br/>
 Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,<br/>
 And make me travel forth without my cloak,<br/>
 To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,<br/>
 Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?<br/>
 'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,<br/>
 To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,<br/>
 For no man well of such a salve can speak,<br/>
 That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:<br/>
 Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief,<br/>
 Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,<br/>
 Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief<br/>
 To him that bears the strong offence's cross.<br/>
    Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,<br/>
    And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>35</b><br/><br/>
 No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,<br/>
 Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,<br/>
 Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,<br/>
 And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.<br/>
 All men make faults, and even I in this,<br/>
 Authorizing thy trespass with compare,<br/>
 My self corrupting salving thy amiss,<br/>
 Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:<br/>
 For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,<br/>
 Thy adverse party is thy advocate,<br/>
 And 'gainst my self a lawful plea commence:<br/>
 Such civil war is in my love and hate,<br/>
    That I an accessary needs must be,<br/>
    To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>36</b><br/><br/>
 Let me confess that we two must be twain,<br/>
 Although our undivided loves are one:<br/>
 So shall those blots that do with me remain,<br/>
 Without thy help, by me be borne alone.<br/>
 In our two loves there is but one respect,<br/>
 Though in our lives a separable spite,<br/>
 Which though it alter not love's sole effect,<br/>
 Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.<br/>
 I may not evermore acknowledge thee,<br/>
 Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,<br/>
 Nor thou with public kindness honour me,<br/>
 Unless thou take that honour from thy name:<br/>
    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,<br/>
    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>37</b><br/><br/>
 As a decrepit father takes delight,<br/>
 To see his active child do deeds of youth,<br/>
 So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite<br/>
 Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.<br/>
 For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,<br/>
 Or any of these all, or all, or more<br/>
 Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,<br/>
 I make my love engrafted to this store:<br/>
 So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,<br/>
 Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,<br/>
 That I in thy abundance am sufficed,<br/>
 And by a part of all thy glory live:<br/>
    Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,<br/>
    This wish I have, then ten times happy me.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>38</b><br/><br/>
 How can my muse want subject to invent<br/>
 While thou dost breathe that pour'st into my verse,<br/>
 Thine own sweet argument, too excellent,<br/>
 For every vulgar paper to rehearse?<br/>
 O give thy self the thanks if aught in me,<br/>
 Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,<br/>
 For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,<br/>
 When thou thy self dost give invention light?<br/>
 Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth<br/>
 Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,<br/>
 And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth<br/>
 Eternal numbers to outlive long date.<br/>
    If my slight muse do please these curious days,<br/>
    The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>39</b><br/><br/>
 O how thy worth with manners may I sing,<br/>
 When thou art all the better part of me?<br/>
 What can mine own praise to mine own self bring:<br/>
 And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?<br/>
 Even for this, let us divided live,<br/>
 And our dear love lose name of single one,<br/>
 That by this separation I may give:<br/>
 That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone:<br/>
 O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,<br/>
 Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,<br/>
 To entertain the time with thoughts of love,<br/>
 Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.<br/>
    And that thou teachest how to make one twain,<br/>
    By praising him here who doth hence remain.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>40</b><br/><br/>
 Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,<br/>
 What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?<br/>
 No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,<br/>
 All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:<br/>
 Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,<br/>
 I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,<br/>
 But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest<br/>
 By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.<br/>
 I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief<br/>
 Although thou steal thee all my poverty:<br/>
 And yet love knows it is a greater grief<br/>
 To bear greater wrong, than hate's known injury.<br/>
    Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,<br/>
    Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>41</b><br/><br/>
 Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,<br/>
 When I am sometime absent from thy heart,<br/>
 Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,<br/>
 For still temptation follows where thou art.<br/>
 Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,<br/>
 Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.<br/>
 And when a woman woos, what woman's son,<br/>
 Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?<br/>
 Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,<br/>
 And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,<br/>
 Who lead thee in their riot even there<br/>
 Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:<br/>
    Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,<br/>
    Thine by thy beauty being false to me.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>42</b><br/><br/>
 That thou hast her it is not all my grief,<br/>
 And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,<br/>
 That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,<br/>
 A loss in love that touches me more nearly.<br/>
 Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,<br/>
 Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her,<br/>
 And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,<br/>
 Suff'ring my friend for my sake to approve her.<br/>
 If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,<br/>
 And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,<br/>
 Both find each other, and I lose both twain,<br/>
 And both for my sake lay on me this cross,<br/>
    But here's the joy, my friend and I are one,<br/>
    Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>43</b><br/><br/>
 When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,<br/>
 For all the day they view things unrespected,<br/>
 But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,<br/>
 And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.<br/>
 Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright<br/>
 How would thy shadow's form, form happy show,<br/>
 To the clear day with thy much clearer light,<br/>
 When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!<br/>
 How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,<br/>
 By looking on thee in the living day,<br/>
 When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,<br/>
 Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!<br/>
    All days are nights to see till I see thee,<br/>
    And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>44</b><br/><br/>
 If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,<br/>
 Injurious distance should not stop my way,<br/>
 For then despite of space I would be brought,<br/>
 From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,<br/>
 No matter then although my foot did stand<br/>
 Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,<br/>
 For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,<br/>
 As soon as think the place where he would be.<br/>
 But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought<br/>
 To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,<br/>
 But that so much of earth and water wrought,<br/>
 I must attend, time's leisure with my moan.<br/>
    Receiving nought by elements so slow,<br/>
    But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>45</b><br/><br/>
 The other two, slight air, and purging fire,<br/>
 Are both with thee, wherever I abide,<br/>
 The first my thought, the other my desire,<br/>
 These present-absent with swift motion slide.<br/>
 For when these quicker elements are gone<br/>
 In tender embassy of love to thee,<br/>
 My life being made of four, with two alone,<br/>
 Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.<br/>
 Until life's composition be recured,<br/>
 By those swift messengers returned from thee,<br/>
 Who even but now come back again assured,<br/>
 Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.<br/>
    This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,<br/>
    I send them back again and straight grow sad.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>46</b><br/><br/>
 Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,<br/>
 How to divide the conquest of thy sight,<br/>
 Mine eye, my heart thy picture's sight would bar,<br/>
 My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,<br/>
 My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,<br/>
 (A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)<br/>
 But the defendant doth that plea deny,<br/>
 And says in him thy fair appearance lies.<br/>
 To side this title is impanelled<br/>
 A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,<br/>
 And by their verdict is determined<br/>
 The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part.<br/>
    As thus, mine eye's due is thy outward part,<br/>
    And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>47</b><br/><br/>
 Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,<br/>
 And each doth good turns now unto the other,<br/>
 When that mine eye is famished for a look,<br/>
 Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;<br/>
 With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,<br/>
 And to the painted banquet bids my heart:<br/>
 Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,<br/>
 And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.<br/>
 So either by thy picture or my love,<br/>
 Thy self away, art present still with me,<br/>
 For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,<br/>
 And I am still with them, and they with thee.<br/>
    Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight<br/>
    Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>48</b><br/><br/>
 How careful was I when I took my way,<br/>
 Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,<br/>
 That to my use it might unused stay<br/>
 From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!<br/>
 But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,<br/>
 Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,<br/>
 Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,<br/>
 Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.<br/>
 Thee have I not locked up in any chest,<br/>
 Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,<br/>
 Within the gentle closure of my breast,<br/>
 From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,<br/>
    And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,<br/>
    For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>49</b><br/><br/>
 Against that time (if ever that time come)<br/>
 When I shall see thee frown on my defects,<br/>
 When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,<br/>
 Called to that audit by advised respects,<br/>
 Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,<br/>
 And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,<br/>
 When love converted from the thing it was<br/>
 Shall reasons find of settled gravity;<br/>
 Against that time do I ensconce me here<br/>
 Within the knowledge of mine own desert,<br/>
 And this my hand, against my self uprear,<br/>
 To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,<br/>
    To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,<br/>
    Since why to love, I can allege no cause.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>50</b><br/><br/>
 How heavy do I journey on the way,<br/>
 When what I seek (my weary travel's end)<br/>
 Doth teach that case and that repose to say<br/>
 'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.'<br/>
 The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,<br/>
 Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,<br/>
 As if by some instinct the wretch did know<br/>
 His rider loved not speed being made from thee:<br/>
 The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,<br/>
 That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,<br/>
 Which heavily he answers with a groan,<br/>
 More sharp to me than spurring to his side,<br/>
    For that same groan doth put this in my mind,<br/>
    My grief lies onward and my joy behind.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>51</b><br/><br/>
 Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,<br/>
 Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,<br/>
 From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?<br/>
 Till I return of posting is no need.<br/>
 O what excuse will my poor beast then find,<br/>
 When swift extremity can seem but slow?<br/>
 Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,<br/>
 In winged speed no motion shall I know,<br/>
 Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,<br/>
 Therefore desire (of perfect'st love being made)<br/>
 Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,<br/>
 But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,<br/>
    Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,<br/>
    Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>52</b><br/><br/>
 So am I as the rich whose blessed key,<br/>
 Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,<br/>
 The which he will not every hour survey,<br/>
 For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.<br/>
 Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,<br/>
 Since seldom coming in that long year set,<br/>
 Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,<br/>
 Or captain jewels in the carcanet.<br/>
 So is the time that keeps you as my chest<br/>
 Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,<br/>
 To make some special instant special-blest,<br/>
 By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.<br/>
    Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,<br/>
    Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>53</b><br/><br/>
 What is your substance, whereof are you made,<br/>
 That millions of strange shadows on you tend?<br/>
 Since every one, hath every one, one shade,<br/>
 And you but one, can every shadow lend:<br/>
 Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,<br/>
 Is poorly imitated after you,<br/>
 On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,<br/>
 And you in Grecian tires are painted new:<br/>
 Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,<br/>
 The one doth shadow of your beauty show,<br/>
 The other as your bounty doth appear,<br/>
 And you in every blessed shape we know.<br/>
    In all external grace you have some part,<br/>
    But you like none, none you for constant heart.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>54</b><br/><br/>
 O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,<br/>
 By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!<br/>
 The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem<br/>
 For that sweet odour, which doth in it live:<br/>
 The canker blooms have full as deep a dye,<br/>
 As the perfumed tincture of the roses,<br/>
 Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,<br/>
 When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:<br/>
 But for their virtue only is their show,<br/>
 They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,<br/>
 Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,<br/>
 Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:<br/>
    And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,<br/>
    When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>55</b><br/><br/>
 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments<br/>
 Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,<br/>
 But you shall shine more bright in these contents<br/>
 Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.<br/>
 When wasteful war shall statues overturn,<br/>
 And broils root out the work of masonry,<br/>
 Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn:<br/>
 The living record of your memory.<br/>
 'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity<br/>
 Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,<br/>
 Even in the eyes of all posterity<br/>
 That wear this world out to the ending doom.<br/>
    So till the judgment that your self arise,<br/>
    You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>56</b><br/><br/>
 Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said<br/>
 Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,<br/>
 Which but to-day by feeding is allayed,<br/>
 To-morrow sharpened in his former might.<br/>
 So love be thou, although to-day thou fill<br/>
 Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,<br/>
 To-morrow see again, and do not kill<br/>
 The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness:<br/>
 Let this sad interim like the ocean be<br/>
 Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,<br/>
 Come daily to the banks, that when they see:<br/>
 Return of love, more blest may be the view.<br/>
    Or call it winter, which being full of care,<br/>
    Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>57</b><br/><br/>
 Being your slave what should I do but tend,<br/>
 Upon the hours, and times of your desire?<br/>
 I have no precious time at all to spend;<br/>
 Nor services to do till you require.<br/>
 Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,<br/>
 Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,<br/>
 Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,<br/>
 When you have bid your servant once adieu.<br/>
 Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,<br/>
 Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,<br/>
 But like a sad slave stay and think of nought<br/>
 Save where you are, how happy you make those.<br/>
    So true a fool is love, that in your will,<br/>
    (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>58</b><br/><br/>
 That god forbid, that made me first your slave,<br/>
 I should in thought control your times of pleasure,<br/>
 Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,<br/>
 Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.<br/>
 O let me suffer (being at your beck)<br/>
 Th' imprisoned absence of your liberty,<br/>
 And patience tame to sufferance bide each check,<br/>
 Without accusing you of injury.<br/>
 Be where you list, your charter is so strong,<br/>
 That you your self may privilage your time<br/>
 To what you will, to you it doth belong,<br/>
 Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.<br/>
    I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,<br/>
    Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>59</b><br/><br/>
 If there be nothing new, but that which is,<br/>
 Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,<br/>
 Which labouring for invention bear amis<br/>
 The second burthen of a former child!<br/>
 O that record could with a backward look,<br/>
 Even of five hundred courses of the sun,<br/>
 Show me your image in some antique book,<br/>
 Since mind at first in character was done.<br/>
 That I might see what the old world could say,<br/>
 To this composed wonder of your frame,<br/>
 Whether we are mended, or whether better they,<br/>
 Or whether revolution be the same.<br/>
    O sure I am the wits of former days,<br/>
    To subjects worse have given admiring praise.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>60</b><br/><br/>
 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,<br/>
 So do our minutes hasten to their end,<br/>
 Each changing place with that which goes before,<br/>
 In sequent toil all forwards do contend.<br/>
 Nativity once in the main of light,<br/>
 Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,<br/>
 Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,<br/>
 And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.<br/>
 Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,<br/>
 And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,<br/>
 Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,<br/>
 And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.<br/>
    And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand<br/>
    Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>61</b><br/><br/>
 Is it thy will, thy image should keep open<br/>
 My heavy eyelids to the weary night?<br/>
 Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,<br/>
 While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?<br/>
 Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee<br/>
 So far from home into my deeds to pry,<br/>
 To find out shames and idle hours in me,<br/>
 The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?<br/>
 O no, thy love though much, is not so great,<br/>
 It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,<br/>
 Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,<br/>
 To play the watchman ever for thy sake.<br/>
    For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,<br/>
    From me far off, with others all too near.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>62</b><br/><br/>
 Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,<br/>
 And all my soul, and all my every part;<br/>
 And for this sin there is no remedy,<br/>
 It is so grounded inward in my heart.<br/>
 Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,<br/>
 No shape so true, no truth of such account,<br/>
 And for my self mine own worth do define,<br/>
 As I all other in all worths surmount.<br/>
 But when my glass shows me my self indeed<br/>
 beated and chopt with tanned antiquity,<br/>
 Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:<br/>
 Self, so self-loving were iniquity.<br/>
    'Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,<br/>
    Painting my age with beauty of thy days.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>63</b><br/><br/>
 Against my love shall be as I am now<br/>
 With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn,<br/>
 When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow<br/>
 With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn<br/>
 Hath travelled on to age's steepy night,<br/>
 And all those beauties whereof now he's king<br/>
 Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,<br/>
 Stealing away the treasure of his spring:<br/>
 For such a time do I now fortify<br/>
 Against confounding age's cruel knife,<br/>
 That he shall never cut from memory<br/>
 My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life.<br/>
    His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,<br/>
    And they shall live, and he in them still green.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>64</b><br/><br/>
 When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced<br/>
 The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,<br/>
 When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,<br/>
 And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.<br/>
 When I have seen the hungry ocean gain<br/>
 Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,<br/>
 And the firm soil win of the watery main,<br/>
 Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.<br/>
 When I have seen such interchange of State,<br/>
 Or state it self confounded, to decay,<br/>
 Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate<br/>
 That Time will come and take my love away.<br/>
    This thought is as a death which cannot choose<br/>
    But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>65</b><br/><br/>
 Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,<br/>
 But sad mortality o'ersways their power,<br/>
 How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,<br/>
 Whose action is no stronger than a flower?<br/>
 O how shall summer's honey breath hold out,<br/>
 Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,<br/>
 When rocks impregnable are not so stout,<br/>
 Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?<br/>
 O fearful meditation, where alack,<br/>
 Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?<br/>
 Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,<br/>
 Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?<br/>
    O none, unless this miracle have might,<br/>
    That in black ink my love may still shine bright.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>66</b><br/><br/>
 Tired with all these for restful death I cry,<br/>
 As to behold desert a beggar born,<br/>
 And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,<br/>
 And purest faith unhappily forsworn,<br/>
 And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,<br/>
 And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,<br/>
 And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,<br/>
 And strength by limping sway disabled<br/>
 And art made tongue-tied by authority,<br/>
 And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,<br/>
 And simple truth miscalled simplicity,<br/>
 And captive good attending captain ill.<br/>
    Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,<br/>
    Save that to die, I leave my love alone.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>67</b><br/><br/>
 Ah wherefore with infection should he live,<br/>
 And with his presence grace impiety,<br/>
 That sin by him advantage should achieve,<br/>
 And lace it self with his society?<br/>
 Why should false painting imitate his cheek,<br/>
 And steal dead seeming of his living hue?<br/>
 Why should poor beauty indirectly seek,<br/>
 Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?<br/>
 Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is,<br/>
 Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins,<br/>
 For she hath no exchequer now but his,<br/>
 And proud of many, lives upon his gains?<br/>
    O him she stores, to show what wealth she had,<br/>
    In days long since, before these last so bad.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>68</b><br/><br/>
 Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,<br/>
 When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,<br/>
 Before these bastard signs of fair were born,<br/>
 Or durst inhabit on a living brow:<br/>
 Before the golden tresses of the dead,<br/>
 The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,<br/>
 To live a second life on second head,<br/>
 Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:<br/>
 In him those holy antique hours are seen,<br/>
 Without all ornament, it self and true,<br/>
 Making no summer of another's green,<br/>
 Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,<br/>
    And him as for a map doth Nature store,<br/>
    To show false Art what beauty was of yore.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>69</b><br/><br/>
 Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view,<br/>
 Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:<br/>
 All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,<br/>
 Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.<br/>
 Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,<br/>
 But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,<br/>
 In other accents do this praise confound<br/>
 By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.<br/>
 They look into the beauty of thy mind,<br/>
 And that in guess they measure by thy deeds,<br/>
 Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)<br/>
 To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:<br/>
    But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,<br/>
    The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>70</b><br/><br/>
 That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,<br/>
 For slander's mark was ever yet the fair,<br/>
 The ornament of beauty is suspect,<br/>
 A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.<br/>
 So thou be good, slander doth but approve,<br/>
 Thy worth the greater being wooed of time,<br/>
 For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,<br/>
 And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.<br/>
 Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,<br/>
 Either not assailed, or victor being charged,<br/>
 Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,<br/>
 To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,<br/>
    If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,<br/>
    Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>71</b><br/><br/>
 No longer mourn for me when I am dead,<br/>
 Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell<br/>
 Give warning to the world that I am fled<br/>
 From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:<br/>
 Nay if you read this line, remember not,<br/>
 The hand that writ it, for I love you so,<br/>
 That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,<br/>
 If thinking on me then should make you woe.<br/>
 O if (I say) you look upon this verse,<br/>
 When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,<br/>
 Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;<br/>
 But let your love even with my life decay.<br/>
    Lest the wise world should look into your moan,<br/>
    And mock you with me after I am gone.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>72</b><br/><br/>
 O lest the world should task you to recite,<br/>
 What merit lived in me that you should love<br/>
 After my death (dear love) forget me quite,<br/>
 For you in me can nothing worthy prove.<br/>
 Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,<br/>
 To do more for me than mine own desert,<br/>
 And hang more praise upon deceased I,<br/>
 Than niggard truth would willingly impart:<br/>
 O lest your true love may seem false in this,<br/>
 That you for love speak well of me untrue,<br/>
 My name be buried where my body is,<br/>
 And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.<br/>
    For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,<br/>
    And so should you, to love things nothing worth.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>73</b><br/><br/>
 That time of year thou mayst in me behold,<br/>
 When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang<br/>
 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,<br/>
 Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.<br/>
 In me thou seest the twilight of such day,<br/>
 As after sunset fadeth in the west,<br/>
 Which by and by black night doth take away,<br/>
 Death's second self that seals up all in rest.<br/>
 In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,<br/>
 That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,<br/>
 As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,<br/>
 Consumed with that which it was nourished by.<br/>
    This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,<br/>
    To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>74</b><br/><br/>
 But be contented when that fell arrest,<br/>
 Without all bail shall carry me away,<br/>
 My life hath in this line some interest,<br/>
 Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.<br/>
 When thou reviewest this, thou dost review,<br/>
 The very part was consecrate to thee,<br/>
 The earth can have but earth, which is his due,<br/>
 My spirit is thine the better part of me,<br/>
 So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,<br/>
 The prey of worms, my body being dead,<br/>
 The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,<br/>
 Too base of thee to be remembered,<br/>
    The worth of that, is that which it contains,<br/>
    And that is this, and this with thee remains.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>75</b><br/><br/>
 So are you to my thoughts as food to life,<br/>
 Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;<br/>
 And for the peace of you I hold such strife<br/>
 As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.<br/>
 Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon<br/>
 Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,<br/>
 Now counting best to be with you alone,<br/>
 Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,<br/>
 Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,<br/>
 And by and by clean starved for a look,<br/>
 Possessing or pursuing no delight<br/>
 Save what is had, or must from you be took.<br/>
    Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,<br/>
    Or gluttoning on all, or all away.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>76</b><br/><br/>
 Why is my verse so barren of new pride?<br/>
 So far from variation or quick change?<br/>
 Why with the time do I not glance aside<br/>
 To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?<br/>
 Why write I still all one, ever the same,<br/>
 And keep invention in a noted weed,<br/>
 That every word doth almost tell my name,<br/>
 Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?<br/>
 O know sweet love I always write of you,<br/>
 And you and love are still my argument:<br/>
 So all my best is dressing old words new,<br/>
 Spending again what is already spent:<br/>
    For as the sun is daily new and old,<br/>
    So is my love still telling what is told.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>77</b><br/><br/>
 Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,<br/>
 Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,<br/>
 These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,<br/>
 And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.<br/>
 The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,<br/>
 Of mouthed graves will give thee memory,<br/>
 Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know,<br/>
 Time's thievish progress to eternity.<br/>
 Look what thy memory cannot contain,<br/>
 Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find<br/>
 Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,<br/>
 To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.<br/>
    These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,<br/>
    Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>78</b><br/><br/>
 So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,<br/>
 And found such fair assistance in my verse,<br/>
 As every alien pen hath got my use,<br/>
 And under thee their poesy disperse.<br/>
 Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,<br/>
 And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,<br/>
 Have added feathers to the learned's wing,<br/>
 And given grace a double majesty.<br/>
 Yet be most proud of that which I compile,<br/>
 Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,<br/>
 In others' works thou dost but mend the style,<br/>
 And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.<br/>
    But thou art all my art, and dost advance<br/>
    As high as learning, my rude ignorance.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>79</b><br/><br/>
 Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,<br/>
 My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,<br/>
 But now my gracious numbers are decayed,<br/>
 And my sick muse doth give an other place.<br/>
 I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument<br/>
 Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,<br/>
 Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,<br/>
 He robs thee of, and pays it thee again,<br/>
 He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word,<br/>
 From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give<br/>
 And found it in thy cheek: he can afford<br/>
 No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.<br/>
    Then thank him not for that which he doth say,<br/>
    Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>80</b><br/><br/>
 O how I faint when I of you do write,<br/>
 Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,<br/>
 And in the praise thereof spends all his might,<br/>
 To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.<br/>
 But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)<br/>
 The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,<br/>
 My saucy bark (inferior far to his)<br/>
 On your broad main doth wilfully appear.<br/>
 Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,<br/>
 Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,<br/>
 Or (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat,<br/>
 He of tall building, and of goodly pride.<br/>
    Then if he thrive and I be cast away,<br/>
    The worst was this, my love was my decay.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>81</b><br/><br/>
 Or I shall live your epitaph to make,<br/>
 Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,<br/>
 From hence your memory death cannot take,<br/>
 Although in me each part will be forgotten.<br/>
 Your name from hence immortal life shall have,<br/>
 Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,<br/>
 The earth can yield me but a common grave,<br/>
 When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie,<br/>
 Your monument shall be my gentle verse,<br/>
 Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,<br/>
 And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,<br/>
 When all the breathers of this world are dead,<br/>
    You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)<br/>
    Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>82</b><br/><br/>
 I grant thou wert not married to my muse,<br/>
 And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook<br/>
 The dedicated words which writers use<br/>
 Of their fair subject, blessing every book.<br/>
 Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,<br/>
 Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,<br/>
 And therefore art enforced to seek anew,<br/>
 Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.<br/>
 And do so love, yet when they have devised,<br/>
 What strained touches rhetoric can lend,<br/>
 Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,<br/>
 In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.<br/>
    And their gross painting might be better used,<br/>
    Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>83</b><br/><br/>
 I never saw that you did painting need,<br/>
 And therefore to your fair no painting set,<br/>
 I found (or thought I found) you did exceed,<br/>
 That barren tender of a poet's debt:<br/>
 And therefore have I slept in your report,<br/>
 That you your self being extant well might show,<br/>
 How far a modern quill doth come too short,<br/>
 Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.<br/>
 This silence for my sin you did impute,<br/>
 Which shall be most my glory being dumb,<br/>
 For I impair not beauty being mute,<br/>
 When others would give life, and bring a tomb.<br/>
    There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,<br/>
    Than both your poets can in praise devise.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>84</b><br/><br/>
 Who is it that says most, which can say more,<br/>
 Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you?<br/>
 In whose confine immured is the store,<br/>
 Which should example where your equal grew.<br/>
 Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,<br/>
 That to his subject lends not some small glory,<br/>
 But he that writes of you, if he can tell,<br/>
 That you are you, so dignifies his story.<br/>
 Let him but copy what in you is writ,<br/>
 Not making worse what nature made so clear,<br/>
 And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,<br/>
 Making his style admired every where.<br/>
    You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,<br/>
    Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>85</b><br/><br/>
 My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,<br/>
 While comments of your praise richly compiled,<br/>
 Reserve their character with golden quill,<br/>
 And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.<br/>
 I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,<br/>
 And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,<br/>
 To every hymn that able spirit affords,<br/>
 In polished form of well refined pen.<br/>
 Hearing you praised, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,<br/>
 And to the most of praise add something more,<br/>
 But that is in my thought, whose love to you<br/>
 (Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,<br/>
    Then others, for the breath of words respect,<br/>
    Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>86</b><br/><br/>
 Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,<br/>
 Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,<br/>
 That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,<br/>
 Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?<br/>
 Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,<br/>
 Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?<br/>
 No, neither he, nor his compeers by night<br/>
 Giving him aid, my verse astonished.<br/>
 He nor that affable familiar ghost<br/>
 Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,<br/>
 As victors of my silence cannot boast,<br/>
 I was not sick of any fear from thence.<br/>
    But when your countenance filled up his line,<br/>
    Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>87</b><br/><br/>
 Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,<br/>
 And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,<br/>
 The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:<br/>
 My bonds in thee are all determinate.<br/>
 For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,<br/>
 And for that riches where is my deserving?<br/>
 The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,<br/>
 And so my patent back again is swerving.<br/>
 Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,<br/>
 Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking,<br/>
 So thy great gift upon misprision growing,<br/>
 Comes home again, on better judgement making.<br/>
    Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,<br/>
    In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>88</b><br/><br/>
 When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,<br/>
 And place my merit in the eye of scorn,<br/>
 Upon thy side, against my self I'll fight,<br/>
 And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:<br/>
 With mine own weakness being best acquainted,<br/>
 Upon thy part I can set down a story<br/>
 Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:<br/>
 That thou in losing me, shalt win much glory:<br/>
 And I by this will be a gainer too,<br/>
 For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,<br/>
 The injuries that to my self I do,<br/>
 Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.<br/>
    Such is my love, to thee I so belong,<br/>
    That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>89</b><br/><br/>
 Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,<br/>
 And I will comment upon that offence,<br/>
 Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:<br/>
 Against thy reasons making no defence.<br/>
 Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,<br/>
 To set a form upon desired change,<br/>
 As I'll my self disgrace, knowing thy will,<br/>
 I will acquaintance strangle and look strange:<br/>
 Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue,<br/>
 Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,<br/>
 Lest I (too much profane) should do it wronk:<br/>
 And haply of our old acquaintance tell.<br/>
    For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,<br/>
    For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>90</b><br/><br/>
 Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,<br/>
 Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,<br/>
 join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,<br/>
 And do not drop in for an after-loss:<br/>
 Ah do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,<br/>
 Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,<br/>
 Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,<br/>
 To linger out a purposed overthrow.<br/>
 If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,<br/>
 When other petty griefs have done their spite,<br/>
 But in the onset come, so shall I taste<br/>
 At first the very worst of fortune's might.<br/>
    And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,<br/>
    Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>91</b><br/><br/>
 Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,<br/>
 Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,<br/>
 Some in their garments though new-fangled ill:<br/>
 Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.<br/>
 And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,<br/>
 Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,<br/>
 But these particulars are not my measure,<br/>
 All these I better in one general best.<br/>
 Thy love is better than high birth to me,<br/>
 Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,<br/>
 Of more delight than hawks and horses be:<br/>
 And having thee, of all men's pride I boast.<br/>
    Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,<br/>
    All this away, and me most wretchcd make.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>92</b><br/><br/>
 But do thy worst to steal thy self away,<br/>
 For term of life thou art assured mine,<br/>
 And life no longer than thy love will stay,<br/>
 For it depends upon that love of thine.<br/>
 Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,<br/>
 When in the least of them my life hath end,<br/>
 I see, a better state to me belongs<br/>
 Than that, which on thy humour doth depend.<br/>
 Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,<br/>
 Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,<br/>
 O what a happy title do I find,<br/>
 Happy to have thy love, happy to die!<br/>
    But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?<br/>
    Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>93</b><br/><br/>
 So shall I live, supposing thou art true,<br/>
 Like a deceived husband, so love's face,<br/>
 May still seem love to me, though altered new:<br/>
 Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.<br/>
 For there can live no hatred in thine eye,<br/>
 Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,<br/>
 In many's looks, the false heart's history<br/>
 Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.<br/>
 But heaven in thy creation did decree,<br/>
 That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,<br/>
 Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,<br/>
 Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.<br/>
    How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,<br/>
    If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>94</b><br/><br/>
 They that have power to hurt, and will do none,<br/>
 That do not do the thing, they most do show,<br/>
 Who moving others, are themselves as stone,<br/>
 Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:<br/>
 They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,<br/>
 And husband nature's riches from expense,<br/>
 Tibey are the lords and owners of their faces,<br/>
 Others, but stewards of their excellence:<br/>
 The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,<br/>
 Though to it self, it only live and die,<br/>
 But if that flower with base infection meet,<br/>
 The basest weed outbraves his dignity:<br/>
    For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,<br/>
    Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>95</b><br/><br/>
 How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,<br/>
 Which like a canker in the fragrant rose,<br/>
 Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!<br/>
 O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!<br/>
 That tongue that tells the story of thy days,<br/>
 (Making lascivious comments on thy sport)<br/>
 Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,<br/>
 Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.<br/>
 O what a mansion have those vices got,<br/>
 Which for their habitation chose out thee,<br/>
 Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,<br/>
 And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!<br/>
    Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,<br/>
    The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>96</b><br/><br/>
 Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,<br/>
 Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,<br/>
 Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:<br/>
 Thou mak'st faults graces, that to thee resort:<br/>
 As on the finger of a throned queen,<br/>
 The basest jewel will be well esteemed:<br/>
 So are those errors that in thee are seen,<br/>
 To truths translated, and for true things deemed.<br/>
 How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,<br/>
 If like a lamb he could his looks translate!<br/>
 How many gazers mightst thou lead away,<br/>
 if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!<br/>
    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,<br/>
    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>97</b><br/><br/>
 How like a winter hath my absence been<br/>
 From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!<br/>
 What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!<br/>
 What old December's bareness everywhere!<br/>
 And yet this time removed was summer's time,<br/>
 The teeming autumn big with rich increase,<br/>
 Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,<br/>
 Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease:<br/>
 Yet this abundant issue seemed to me<br/>
 But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,<br/>
 For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,<br/>
 And thou away, the very birds are mute.<br/>
    Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,<br/>
    That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>98</b><br/><br/>
 From you have I been absent in the spring,<br/>
 When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)<br/>
 Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:<br/>
 That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.<br/>
 Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell<br/>
 Of different flowers in odour and in hue,<br/>
 Could make me any summer's story tell:<br/>
 Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:<br/>
 Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,<br/>
 Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,<br/>
 They were but sweet, but figures of delight:<br/>
 Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.<br/>
    Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,<br/>
    As with your shadow I with these did play.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>99</b><br/><br/>
 The forward violet thus did I chide,<br/>
 Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,<br/>
 If not from my love's breath? The purple pride<br/>
 Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells,<br/>
 In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.<br/>
 The lily I condemned for thy hand,<br/>
 And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair,<br/>
 The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,<br/>
 One blushing shame, another white despair:<br/>
 A third nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both,<br/>
 And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,<br/>
 But for his theft in pride of all his growth<br/>
 A vengeful canker eat him up to death.<br/>
    More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,<br/>
    But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>100</b><br/><br/>
 Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,<br/>
 To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?<br/>
 Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,<br/>
 Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?<br/>
 Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,<br/>
 In gentle numbers time so idly spent,<br/>
 Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,<br/>
 And gives thy pen both skill and argument.<br/>
 Rise resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,<br/>
 If time have any wrinkle graven there,<br/>
 If any, be a satire to decay,<br/>
 And make time's spoils despised everywhere.<br/>
    Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,<br/>
    So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>101</b><br/><br/>
 O truant Muse what shall be thy amends,<br/>
 For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?<br/>
 Both truth and beauty on my love depends:<br/>
 So dost thou too, and therein dignified:<br/>
 Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,<br/>
 'Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,<br/>
 Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:<br/>
 But best is best, if never intermixed'?<br/>
 Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?<br/>
 Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee,<br/>
 To make him much outlive a gilded tomb:<br/>
 And to be praised of ages yet to be.<br/>
    Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,<br/>
    To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>102</b><br/><br/>
 My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,<br/>
 I love not less, though less the show appear,<br/>
 That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,<br/>
 The owner's tongue doth publish every where.<br/>
 Our love was new, and then but in the spring,<br/>
 When I was wont to greet it with my lays,<br/>
 As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,<br/>
 And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:<br/>
 Not that the summer is less pleasant now<br/>
 Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,<br/>
 But that wild music burthens every bough,<br/>
 And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.<br/>
    Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:<br/>
    Because I would not dull you with my song.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>103</b><br/><br/>
 Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,<br/>
 That having such a scope to show her pride,<br/>
 The argument all bare is of more worth<br/>
 Than when it hath my added praise beside.<br/>
 O blame me not if I no more can write!<br/>
 Look in your glass and there appears a face,<br/>
 That over-goes my blunt invention quite,<br/>
 Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.<br/>
 Were it not sinful then striving to mend,<br/>
 To mar the subject that before was well?<br/>
 For to no other pass my verses tend,<br/>
 Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.<br/>
    And more, much more than in my verse can sit,<br/>
    Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>104</b><br/><br/>
 To me fair friend you never can be old,<br/>
 For as you were when first your eye I eyed,<br/>
 Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold,<br/>
 Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,<br/>
 Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,<br/>
 In process of the seasons have I seen,<br/>
 Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,<br/>
 Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.<br/>
 Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand,<br/>
 Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,<br/>
 So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand<br/>
 Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.<br/>
    For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,<br/>
    Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>105</b><br/><br/>
 Let not my love be called idolatry,<br/>
 Nor my beloved as an idol show,<br/>
 Since all alike my songs and praises be<br/>
 To one, of one, still such, and ever so.<br/>
 Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,<br/>
 Still constant in a wondrous excellence,<br/>
 Therefore my verse to constancy confined,<br/>
 One thing expressing, leaves out difference.<br/>
 Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,<br/>
 Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words,<br/>
 And in this change is my invention spent,<br/>
 Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.<br/>
    Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.<br/>
    Which three till now, never kept seat in one.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>106</b><br/><br/>
 When in the chronicle of wasted time,<br/>
 I see descriptions of the fairest wights,<br/>
 And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,<br/>
 In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,<br/>
 Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,<br/>
 Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,<br/>
 I see their antique pen would have expressed,<br/>
 Even such a beauty as you master now.<br/>
 So all their praises are but prophecies<br/>
 Of this our time, all you prefiguring,<br/>
 And for they looked but with divining eyes,<br/>
 They had not skill enough your worth to sing:<br/>
    For we which now behold these present days,<br/>
    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>107</b><br/><br/>
 Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,<br/>
 Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,<br/>
 Can yet the lease of my true love control,<br/>
 Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.<br/>
 The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,<br/>
 And the sad augurs mock their own presage,<br/>
 Incertainties now crown themselves assured,<br/>
 And peace proclaims olives of endless age.<br/>
 Now with the drops of this most balmy time,<br/>
 My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,<br/>
 Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,<br/>
 While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.<br/>
    And thou in this shalt find thy monument,<br/>
    When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>108</b><br/><br/>
 What's in the brain that ink may character,<br/>
 Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit,<br/>
 What's new to speak, what now to register,<br/>
 That may express my love, or thy dear merit?<br/>
 Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,<br/>
 I must each day say o'er the very same,<br/>
 Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,<br/>
 Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.<br/>
 So that eternal love in love's fresh case,<br/>
 Weighs not the dust and injury of age,<br/>
 Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,<br/>
 But makes antiquity for aye his page,<br/>
    Finding the first conceit of love there bred,<br/>
    Where time and outward form would show it dead.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>109</b><br/><br/>
 O never say that I was false of heart,<br/>
 Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,<br/>
 As easy might I from my self depart,<br/>
 As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:<br/>
 That is my home of love, if I have ranged,<br/>
 Like him that travels I return again,<br/>
 Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,<br/>
 So that my self bring water for my stain,<br/>
 Never believe though in my nature reigned,<br/>
 All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,<br/>
 That it could so preposterously be stained,<br/>
 To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:<br/>
    For nothing this wide universe I call,<br/>
    Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>110</b><br/><br/>
 Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there,<br/>
 And made my self a motley to the view,<br/>
 Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,<br/>
 Made old offences of affections new.<br/>
 Most true it is, that I have looked on truth<br/>
 Askance and strangely: but by all above,<br/>
 These blenches gave my heart another youth,<br/>
 And worse essays proved thee my best of love.<br/>
 Now all is done, have what shall have no end,<br/>
 Mine appetite I never more will grind<br/>
 On newer proof, to try an older friend,<br/>
 A god in love, to whom I am confined.<br/>
    Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,<br/>
    Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>111</b><br/><br/>
 O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,<br/>
 The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,<br/>
 That did not better for my life provide,<br/>
 Than public means which public manners breeds.<br/>
 Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,<br/>
 And almost thence my nature is subdued<br/>
 To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:<br/>
 Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,<br/>
 Whilst like a willing patient I will drink,<br/>
 Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection,<br/>
 No bitterness that I will bitter think,<br/>
 Nor double penance to correct correction.<br/>
    Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,<br/>
    Even that your pity is enough to cure me.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>112</b><br/><br/>
 Your love and pity doth th' impression fill,<br/>
 Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,<br/>
 For what care I who calls me well or ill,<br/>
 So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?<br/>
 You are my all the world, and I must strive,<br/>
 To know my shames and praises from your tongue,<br/>
 None else to me, nor I to none alive,<br/>
 That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.<br/>
 In so profound abysm I throw all care<br/>
 Of others' voices, that my adder's sense,<br/>
 To critic and to flatterer stopped are:<br/>
 Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.<br/>
    You are so strongly in my purpose bred,<br/>
    That all the world besides methinks are dead.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>113</b><br/><br/>
 Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,<br/>
 And that which governs me to go about,<br/>
 Doth part his function, and is partly blind,<br/>
 Seems seeing, but effectually is out:<br/>
 For it no form delivers to the heart<br/>
 Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,<br/>
 Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,<br/>
 Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:<br/>
 For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,<br/>
 The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,<br/>
 The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:<br/>
 The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.<br/>
    Incapable of more, replete with you,<br/>
    My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>114</b><br/><br/>
 Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you<br/>
 Drink up the monarch's plague this flattery?<br/>
 Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,<br/>
 And that your love taught it this alchemy?<br/>
 To make of monsters, and things indigest,<br/>
 Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,<br/>
 Creating every bad a perfect best<br/>
 As fast as objects to his beams assemble:<br/>
 O 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,<br/>
 And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,<br/>
 Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,<br/>
 And to his palate doth prepare the cup.<br/>
    If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,<br/>
    That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>115</b><br/><br/>
 Those lines that I before have writ do lie,<br/>
 Even those that said I could not love you dearer,<br/>
 Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,<br/>
 My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,<br/>
 But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents<br/>
 Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,<br/>
 Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,<br/>
 Divert strong minds to the course of alt'ring things:<br/>
 Alas why fearing of time's tyranny,<br/>
 Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'<br/>
 When I was certain o'er incertainty,<br/>
 Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?<br/>
    Love is a babe, then might I not say so<br/>
    To give full growth to that which still doth grow.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>116</b><br/><br/>
 Let me not to the marriage of true minds<br/>
 Admit impediments, love is not love<br/>
 Which alters when it alteration finds,<br/>
 Or bends with the remover to remove.<br/>
 O no, it is an ever-fixed mark<br/>
 That looks on tempests and is never shaken;<br/>
 It is the star to every wand'ring bark,<br/>
 Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.<br/>
 Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks<br/>
 Within his bending sickle's compass come,<br/>
 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,<br/>
 But bears it out even to the edge of doom:<br/>
    If this be error and upon me proved,<br/>
    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>117</b><br/><br/>
 Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,<br/>
 Wherein I should your great deserts repay,<br/>
 Forgot upon your dearest love to call,<br/>
 Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,<br/>
 That I have frequent been with unknown minds,<br/>
 And given to time your own dear-purchased right,<br/>
 That I have hoisted sail to all the winds<br/>
 Which should transport me farthest from your sight.<br/>
 Book both my wilfulness and errors down,<br/>
 And on just proof surmise, accumulate,<br/>
 Bring me within the level of your frown,<br/>
 But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:<br/>
    Since my appeal says I did strive to prove<br/>
    The constancy and virtue of your love.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>118</b><br/><br/>
 Like as to make our appetite more keen<br/>
 With eager compounds we our palate urge,<br/>
 As to prevent our maladies unseen,<br/>
 We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.<br/>
 Even so being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,<br/>
 To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;<br/>
 And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,<br/>
 To be diseased ere that there was true needing.<br/>
 Thus policy in love t' anticipate<br/>
 The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,<br/>
 And brought to medicine a healthful state<br/>
 Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.<br/>
    But thence I learn and find the lesson true,<br/>
    Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>119</b><br/><br/>
 What potions have I drunk of Siren tears<br/>
 Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,<br/>
 Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,<br/>
 Still losing when I saw my self to win!<br/>
 What wretched errors hath my heart committed,<br/>
 Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!<br/>
 How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted<br/>
 In the distraction of this madding fever!<br/>
 O benefit of ill, now I find true<br/>
 That better is, by evil still made better.<br/>
 And ruined love when it is built anew<br/>
 Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.<br/>
    So I return rebuked to my content,<br/>
    And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>120</b><br/><br/>
 That you were once unkind befriends me now,<br/>
 And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,<br/>
 Needs must I under my transgression bow,<br/>
 Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.<br/>
 For if you were by my unkindness shaken<br/>
 As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time,<br/>
 And I a tyrant have no leisure taken<br/>
 To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.<br/>
 O that our night of woe might have remembered<br/>
 My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,<br/>
 And soon to you, as you to me then tendered<br/>
 The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!<br/>
    But that your trespass now becomes a fee,<br/>
    Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>121</b><br/><br/>
 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,<br/>
 When not to be, receives reproach of being,<br/>
 And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,<br/>
 Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.<br/>
 For why should others' false adulterate eyes<br/>
 Give salutation to my sportive blood?<br/>
 Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,<br/>
 Which in their wills count bad what I think good?<br/>
 No, I am that I am, and they that level<br/>
 At my abuses, reckon up their own,<br/>
 I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;<br/>
 By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown<br/>
    Unless this general evil they maintain,<br/>
    All men are bad and in their badness reign.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>122</b><br/><br/>
 Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain<br/>
 Full charactered with lasting memory,<br/>
 Which shall above that idle rank remain<br/>
 Beyond all date even to eternity.<br/>
 Or at the least, so long as brain and heart<br/>
 Have faculty by nature to subsist,<br/>
 Till each to razed oblivion yield his part<br/>
 Of thee, thy record never can be missed:<br/>
 That poor retention could not so much hold,<br/>
 Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,<br/>
 Therefore to give them from me was I bold,<br/>
 To trust those tables that receive thee more:<br/>
    To keep an adjunct to remember thee<br/>
    Were to import forgetfulness in me.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>123</b><br/><br/>
 No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,<br/>
 Thy pyramids built up with newer might<br/>
 To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,<br/>
 They are but dressings Of a former sight:<br/>
 Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire,<br/>
 What thou dost foist upon us that is old,<br/>
 And rather make them born to our desire,<br/>
 Than think that we before have heard them told:<br/>
 Thy registers and thee I both defy,<br/>
 Not wond'ring at the present, nor the past,<br/>
 For thy records, and what we see doth lie,<br/>
 Made more or less by thy continual haste:<br/>
    This I do vow and this shall ever be,<br/>
    I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>124</b><br/><br/>
 If my dear love were but the child of state,<br/>
 It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,<br/>
 As subject to time's love or to time's hate,<br/>
 Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.<br/>
 No it was builded far from accident,<br/>
 It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls<br/>
 Under the blow of thralled discontent,<br/>
 Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:<br/>
 It fears not policy that heretic,<br/>
 Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,<br/>
 But all alone stands hugely politic,<br/>
 That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.<br/>
    To this I witness call the fools of time,<br/>
    Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>125</b><br/><br/>
 Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,<br/>
 With my extern the outward honouring,<br/>
 Or laid great bases for eternity,<br/>
 Which proves more short than waste or ruining?<br/>
 Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour<br/>
 Lose all, and more by paying too much rent<br/>
 For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,<br/>
 Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?<br/>
 No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,<br/>
 And take thou my oblation, poor but free,<br/>
 Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,<br/>
 But mutual render, only me for thee.<br/>
    Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul<br/>
    When most impeached, stands least in thy control.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>126</b><br/><br/>
 O thou my lovely boy who in thy power,<br/>
 Dost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour:<br/>
 Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st,<br/>
 Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.<br/>
 If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)<br/>
 As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,<br/>
 She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill<br/>
 May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.<br/>
 Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,<br/>
 She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!<br/>
    Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,<br/>
    And her quietus is to render thee.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>127</b><br/><br/>
 In the old age black was not counted fair,<br/>
 Or if it were it bore not beauty's name:<br/>
 But now is black beauty's successive heir,<br/>
 And beauty slandered with a bastard shame,<br/>
 For since each hand hath put on nature's power,<br/>
 Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,<br/>
 Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,<br/>
 But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.<br/>
 Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,<br/>
 Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,<br/>
 At such who not born fair no beauty lack,<br/>
 Slandering creation with a false esteem,<br/>
    Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,<br/>
    That every tongue says beauty should look so.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>128</b><br/><br/>
 How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,<br/>
 Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds<br/>
 With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st<br/>
 The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,<br/>
 Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,<br/>
 To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,<br/>
 Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,<br/>
 At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand.<br/>
 To be so tickled they would change their state<br/>
 And situation with those dancing chips,<br/>
 O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,<br/>
 Making dead wood more blest than living lips,<br/>
    Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,<br/>
    Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>129</b><br/><br/>
 Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame<br/>
 Is lust in action, and till action, lust<br/>
 Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody full of blame,<br/>
 Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,<br/>
 Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,<br/>
 Past reason hunted, and no sooner had<br/>
 Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,<br/>
 On purpose laid to make the taker mad.<br/>
 Mad in pursuit and in possession so,<br/>
 Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,<br/>
 A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,<br/>
 Before a joy proposed behind a dream.<br/>
    All this the world well knows yet none knows well,<br/>
    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>130</b><br/><br/>
 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,<br/>
 Coral is far more red, than her lips red,<br/>
 If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:<br/>
 If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:<br/>
 I have seen roses damasked, red and white,<br/>
 But no such roses see I in her cheeks,<br/>
 And in some perfumes is there more delight,<br/>
 Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.<br/>
 I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,<br/>
 That music hath a far more pleasing sound:<br/>
 I grant I never saw a goddess go,<br/>
 My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.<br/>
    And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,<br/>
    As any she belied with false compare.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>131</b><br/><br/>
 Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,<br/>
 As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;<br/>
 For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart<br/>
 Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.<br/>
 Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,<br/>
 Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;<br/>
 To say they err, I dare not be so bold,<br/>
 Although I swear it to my self alone.<br/>
 And to be sure that is not false I swear,<br/>
 A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,<br/>
 One on another's neck do witness bear<br/>
 Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.<br/>
    In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,<br/>
    And thence this slander as I think proceeds.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>132</b><br/><br/>
 Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,<br/>
 Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,<br/>
 Have put on black, and loving mourners be,<br/>
 Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.<br/>
 And truly not the morning sun of heaven<br/>
 Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,<br/>
 Nor that full star that ushers in the even<br/>
 Doth half that glory to the sober west<br/>
 As those two mourning eyes become thy face:<br/>
 O let it then as well beseem thy heart<br/>
 To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,<br/>
 And suit thy pity like in every part.<br/>
    Then will I swear beauty herself is black,<br/>
    And all they foul that thy complexion lack.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>133</b><br/><br/>
 Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan<br/>
 For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;<br/>
 Is't not enough to torture me alone,<br/>
 But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?<br/>
 Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,<br/>
 And my next self thou harder hast engrossed,<br/>
 Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,<br/>
 A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:<br/>
 Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,<br/>
 But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail,<br/>
 Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,<br/>
 Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.<br/>
    And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,<br/>
    Perforce am thine and all that is in me.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>134</b><br/><br/>
 So now I have confessed that he is thine,<br/>
 And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,<br/>
 My self I'll forfeit, so that other mine,<br/>
 Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:<br/>
 But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,<br/>
 For thou art covetous, and he is kind,<br/>
 He learned but surety-like to write for me,<br/>
 Under that bond that him as fist doth bind.<br/>
 The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,<br/>
 Thou usurer that put'st forth all to use,<br/>
 And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,<br/>
 So him I lose through my unkind abuse.<br/>
    Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,<br/>
    He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>135</b><br/><br/>
 Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,<br/>
 And Will to boot, and Will in overplus,<br/>
 More than enough am I that vex thee still,<br/>
 To thy sweet will making addition thus.<br/>
 Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious,<br/>
 Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?<br/>
 Shall will in others seem right gracious,<br/>
 And in my will no fair acceptance shine?<br/>
 The sea all water, yet receives rain still,<br/>
 And in abundance addeth to his store,<br/>
 So thou being rich in will add to thy will<br/>
 One will of mine to make thy large will more.<br/>
    Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,<br/>
    Think all but one, and me in that one Will.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>136</b><br/><br/>
 If thy soul check thee that I come so near,<br/>
 Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,<br/>
 And will thy soul knows is admitted there,<br/>
 Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.<br/>
 Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love,<br/>
 Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,<br/>
 In things of great receipt with case we prove,<br/>
 Among a number one is reckoned none.<br/>
 Then in the number let me pass untold,<br/>
 Though in thy store's account I one must be,<br/>
 For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,<br/>
 That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.<br/>
    Make but my name thy love, and love that still,<br/>
    And then thou lov'st me for my name is Will.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>137</b><br/><br/>
 Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,<br/>
 That they behold and see not what they see?<br/>
 They know what beauty is, see where it lies,<br/>
 Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.<br/>
 If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,<br/>
 Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,<br/>
 Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,<br/>
 Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?<br/>
 Why should my heart think that a several plot,<br/>
 Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?<br/>
 Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not<br/>
 To put fair truth upon so foul a face?<br/>
    In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,<br/>
    And to this false plague are they now transferred.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>138</b><br/><br/>
 When my love swears that she is made of truth,<br/>
 I do believe her though I know she lies,<br/>
 That she might think me some untutored youth,<br/>
 Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.<br/>
 Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,<br/>
 Although she knows my days are past the best,<br/>
 Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue,<br/>
 On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:<br/>
 But wherefore says she not she is unjust?<br/>
 And wherefore say not I that I am old?<br/>
 O love's best habit is in seeming trust,<br/>
 And age in love, loves not to have years told.<br/>
    Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,<br/>
    And in our faults by lies we flattered be.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>139</b><br/><br/>
 O call not me to justify the wrong,<br/>
 That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,<br/>
 Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,<br/>
 Use power with power, and slay me not by art,<br/>
 Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,<br/>
 Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,<br/>
 What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might<br/>
 Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?<br/>
 Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,<br/>
 Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,<br/>
 And therefore from my face she turns my foes,<br/>
 That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:<br/>
    Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,<br/>
    Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>140</b><br/><br/>
 Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press<br/>
 My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:<br/>
 Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,<br/>
 The manner of my pity-wanting pain.<br/>
 If I might teach thee wit better it were,<br/>
 Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,<br/>
 As testy sick men when their deaths be near,<br/>
 No news but health from their physicians know.<br/>
 For if I should despair I should grow mad,<br/>
 And in my madness might speak ill of thee,<br/>
 Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,<br/>
 Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.<br/>
    That I may not be so, nor thou belied,<br/>
    Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>141</b><br/><br/>
 In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,<br/>
 For they in thee a thousand errors note,<br/>
 But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,<br/>
 Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.<br/>
 Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted,<br/>
 Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,<br/>
 Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited<br/>
 To any sensual feast with thee alone:<br/>
 But my five wits, nor my five senses can<br/>
 Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,<br/>
 Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,<br/>
 Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:<br/>
    Only my plague thus far I count my gain,<br/>
    That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>142</b><br/><br/>
 Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,<br/>
 Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,<br/>
 O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,<br/>
 And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,<br/>
 Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,<br/>
 That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,<br/>
 And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,<br/>
 Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents.<br/>
 Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those,<br/>
 Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,<br/>
 Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,<br/>
 Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.<br/>
    If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,<br/>
    By self-example mayst thou be denied.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>143</b><br/><br/>
 Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch,<br/>
 One of her feathered creatures broke away,<br/>
 Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch<br/>
 In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:<br/>
 Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,<br/>
 Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent,<br/>
 To follow that which flies before her face:<br/>
 Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;<br/>
 So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,<br/>
 Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,<br/>
 But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:<br/>
 And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind.<br/>
    So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,<br/>
    If thou turn back and my loud crying still.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>144</b><br/><br/>
 Two loves I have of comfort and despair,<br/>
 Which like two spirits do suggest me still,<br/>
 The better angel is a man right fair:<br/>
 The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.<br/>
 To win me soon to hell my female evil,<br/>
 Tempteth my better angel from my side,<br/>
 And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:<br/>
 Wooing his purity with her foul pride.<br/>
 And whether that my angel be turned fiend,<br/>
 Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,<br/>
 But being both from me both to each friend,<br/>
 I guess one angel in another's hell.<br/>
    Yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt,<br/>
    Till my bad angel fire my good one out.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>145</b><br/><br/>
 Those lips that Love's own hand did make,<br/>
 Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',<br/>
 To me that languished for her sake:<br/>
 But when she saw my woeful state,<br/>
 Straight in her heart did mercy come,<br/>
 Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,<br/>
 Was used in giving gentle doom:<br/>
 And taught it thus anew to greet:<br/>
 'I hate' she altered with an end,<br/>
 That followed it as gentle day,<br/>
 Doth follow night who like a fiend<br/>
 From heaven to hell is flown away.<br/>
    'I hate', from hate away she threw,<br/>
    And saved my life saying 'not you'.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>146</b><br/><br/>
 Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth,<br/>
 My sinful earth these rebel powers array,<br/>
 Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth<br/>
 Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?<br/>
 Why so large cost having so short a lease,<br/>
 Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?<br/>
 Shall worms inheritors of this excess<br/>
 Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?<br/>
 Then soul live thou upon thy servant's loss,<br/>
 And let that pine to aggravate thy store;<br/>
 Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;<br/>
 Within be fed, without be rich no more,<br/>
    So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,<br/>
    And death once dead, there's no more dying then.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>147</b><br/><br/>
 My love is as a fever longing still,<br/>
 For that which longer nurseth the disease,<br/>
 Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,<br/>
 Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please:<br/>
 My reason the physician to my love,<br/>
 Angry that his prescriptions are not kept<br/>
 Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,<br/>
 Desire is death, which physic did except.<br/>
 Past cure I am, now reason is past care,<br/>
 And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,<br/>
 My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,<br/>
 At random from the truth vainly expressed.<br/>
    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,<br/>
    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>148</b><br/><br/>
 O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,<br/>
 Which have no correspondence with true sight,<br/>
 Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,<br/>
 That censures falsely what they see aright?<br/>
 If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,<br/>
 What means the world to say it is not so?<br/>
 If it be not, then love doth well denote,<br/>
 Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,<br/>
 How can it? O how can love's eye be true,<br/>
 That is so vexed with watching and with tears?<br/>
 No marvel then though I mistake my view,<br/>
 The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.<br/>
    O cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind,<br/>
    Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>149</b><br/><br/>
 Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,<br/>
 When I against my self with thee partake?<br/>
 Do I not think on thee when I forgot<br/>
 Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake?<br/>
 Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,<br/>
 On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,<br/>
 Nay if thou lour'st on me do I not spend<br/>
 Revenge upon my self with present moan?<br/>
 What merit do I in my self respect,<br/>
 That is so proud thy service to despise,<br/>
 When all my best doth worship thy defect,<br/>
 Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?<br/>
    But love hate on for now I know thy mind,<br/>
    Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>150</b><br/><br/>
 O from what power hast thou this powerful might,<br/>
 With insufficiency my heart to sway,<br/>
 To make me give the lie to my true sight,<br/>
 And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?<br/>
 Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,<br/>
 That in the very refuse of thy deeds,<br/>
 There is such strength and warrantise of skill,<br/>
 That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?<br/>
 Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,<br/>
 The more I hear and see just cause of hate?<br/>
 O though I love what others do abhor,<br/>
 With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.<br/>
    If thy unworthiness raised love in me,<br/>
    More worthy I to be beloved of thee.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>151</b><br/><br/>
 Love is too young to know what conscience is,<br/>
 Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?<br/>
 Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,<br/>
 Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.<br/>
 For thou betraying me, I do betray<br/>
 My nobler part to my gross body's treason,<br/>
 My soul doth tell my body that he may,<br/>
 Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,<br/>
 But rising at thy name doth point out thee,<br/>
 As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,<br/>
 He is contented thy poor drudge to be,<br/>
 To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.<br/>
    No want of conscience hold it that I call,<br/>
    Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>152</b><br/><br/>
 In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,<br/>
 But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,<br/>
 In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,<br/>
 In vowing new hate after new love bearing:<br/>
 But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,<br/>
 When I break twenty? I am perjured most,<br/>
 For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:<br/>
 And all my honest faith in thee is lost.<br/>
 For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:<br/>
 Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,<br/>
 And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,<br/>
 Or made them swear against the thing they see.<br/>
    For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I,<br/>
    To swear against the truth so foul a be.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>153</b><br/><br/>
 Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,<br/>
 A maid of Dian's this advantage found,<br/>
 And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep<br/>
 In a cold valley-fountain of that ground:<br/>
 Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love,<br/>
 A dateless lively heat still to endure,<br/>
 And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove,<br/>
 Against strange maladies a sovereign cure:<br/>
 But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,<br/>
 The boy for trial needs would touch my breast,<br/>
 I sick withal the help of bath desired,<br/>
 And thither hied a sad distempered guest.<br/>
    But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,<br/>
    Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <p>                    <b>154</b><br/><br/>
 The little Love-god lying once asleep,<br/>
 Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,<br/>
 Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,<br/>
 Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,<br/>
 The fairest votary took up that fire,<br/>
 Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,<br/>
 And so the general of hot desire,<br/>
 Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.<br/>
 This brand she quenched in a cool well by,<br/>
 Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,<br/>
 Growing a bath and healthful remedy,<br/>
 For men discased, but I my mistress' thrall,<br/>
    Came there for cure and this by that I prove,<br/>
    Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.<br/><br/>
 </p>
 <h4>THE END</h4>
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