Shakespeare 's Sonnets 384.html

<span id = 18439 ></span><span id = 18451 >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.</span><span id = 18452 >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 totter'd 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.</span><span id = 18453 >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 unear'd 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, remember'd not to be,<br />Die single and thine image dies with thee.</span><span id = 18455 >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.</span><span id = 18456 >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 distill'd, though they with winter meet,<br />Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.</span><span id = 18457 >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.</span><span id = 18461 >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 /></span><span id = 18462 >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, thyself outgoing in thy noon<br />Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.</span><span id = 18463 >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.</span><span id = 18465 >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 murderous 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 thyself at least kind-hearted prove:<br />Make thee another self for love of me,<br />That beauty still may live in thine or thee.</span><span id = 18467 >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.</span><span id = 18470 >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.</span><span id = 18472 >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 />Yourself again, after yourself'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.</span><span id = 18473 >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 thyself, 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.</span><span id = 18476 >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.</span><span id = 18477 >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 yourself, keeps yourself still,<br />And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.</span><span id = 18478 >Who will believe my verse in time to come,<br />If it were fill'd 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 touch'd earthly faces.'<br />So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,<br />Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,<br />And your true rights be term'd 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.</span><span id = 18480 >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 wander'st 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.</span><span id = 18481 >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-liv'd 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.</span><span id = 18483 >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 prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,<br />Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.</span><span id = 18484 >So is it not with me as with that Muse,<br />Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,<br />Who heaven itself 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 /></span><span id = 18487 >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 myself, 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.</span><span id = 18488 >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'ercharg'd 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 express'd.<br />O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:<br />To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.</span><span id = 18490 >Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath steel'd,<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 pictur'd 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.</span><span id = 18491 >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 />Unlook'd 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.</span><span id = 18492 >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 tottered 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.</span><span id = 18493 >Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,<br />The dear repose 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 myself, no quiet find.</span><span id = 18494 >How can I then return in happy plight,<br />That am debarred the benefit of rest?<br />When day's oppression is not eas'd by night,<br />But day by night and night by day oppress'd,<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-complexion'd 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.</span><span id = 18496 >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 cancell'd woe,<br />And moan the expense of many a vanish'd 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 restor'd and sorrows end.</span><span id = 18497 >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 remov'd 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 lov'd, I view in thee,<br />And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.</span><span id = 18498 >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'.</span><span id = 18499 >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 mask'd 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.</span><span id = 18501 >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 bravery 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 />The 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.</span><span id = 18503 >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 />Myself 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 myself 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.</span><span id = 18504 >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.</span><span id = 18506 >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 despis'd,<br />Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give<br />That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,<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!</span><span id = 18511 >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.</span><span id = 18513 >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.</span><span id = 18515 >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 blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest<br />By wilful taste of what thyself 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 love's 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 /></span><span id = 18521 >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 assail'd;<br />And when a woman woos, what woman's son<br />Will sourly leave her till he have prevail'd?<br />Ay me! but yet thou might'st 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.</span><span id = 18522 >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 />Suffering 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.</span><span id = 18523 >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.</span><span id = 18524 >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 remov'd 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.</span><span id = 18525 >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, oppress'd with melancholy;<br />Until life's composition be recured<br />By those swift messengers return'd 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.</span><span id = 18526 >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 pierc'd with crystal eyes,<br />But the defendant doth that plea deny,<br />And says in him thy fair appearance lies.<br />To 'cide this title is impannelled<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 thine outward part,<br />And my heart's right, thine inward love of heart.</span><span id = 18527 >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 famish'd 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 eyes' delight.</span><span id = 18528 >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 lock'd 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.</span><span id = 18529 >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 advis'd 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.</span><span id = 18530 >How heavy do I journey on the way,<br />When what I seek, my weary travel's end,<br />Doth teach that ease 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 lov'd 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.</span><span id = 18531 >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 myself, 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.</span>