SHAKESPEARES SONNETS. Never before Imprinted.  
AT LONDON By G. Eld for T. T. and are to be sold by john Wright, dwelling at Christ Church gate. 1609.   

TO. THE. ONLY. BEGETTER. OF. THESE. INSVING. SONNETS. Mr. W. H. ALL. HAPPINESS. AND. THAT. ETERNITY. PROMISED. BY. OUR. EVERLIVING. POET. WISHES. THE. WELLWISHING. ADVENTURER. IN. SETTING. FORTH.  
T. T.   
SHAKESPEARES, SONNETS.  

FRom fairest creatures we desire increase,  
That thereby beauty's Rose might never die,  
But as the riper should by time decease,  
His tender heir might bear his memory:  
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,  
Feedest thy lights flame with self substantial fuel,  
Making a famine where abundance lies,  
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:  
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,  
And only herald to the gaudy spring,  
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,  
And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:  
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,  
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.   

2  
WHen forty Winters shall besiege thy brow,  
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,  
Thy youths proud livery so gazed on now,  
Will be a tottered weed of small worth held:  
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,  
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;  
To say within thine own deep sunken eyes,  
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.  
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,  
If thou couldst answer this fair child of mine  
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse  
Proving his beauty by succession thine.  
This were to be new made when thou art old,  
And see thy blood warm when thou feelest it could.   

3  
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,  
Now is the time that face should form an other,  
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,  
Thou dost beguile the world, unblesse some mother.  
For where is she so fair whose un-eard womb  
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?  
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,  
Of his self love to stop posterity?  
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee  
Calls back the lovely April of her prime,  
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,  
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.  
But if thou live remembered not to be,  
Die single and thine Image dies with thee.   

4  
Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,  
Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?  
Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,  
And being frank she lends to those are free:  
Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,  
The bounteous largesse given thee to give?  
Profitless usurer why dost thou use  
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?  
For having traffic with thyself alone,  
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive,  
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,  
What acceptable Audit canst thou leave?  
Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,  
Which used lives th'executor to be.   

5  
THose hours that with gentle work did frame,  
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell  
Will play the tyrants to the very same,  
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:  
For never resting time leads Summer on,  
To hideous winter and confounds him there,  
Sap checked with frost and lusty leave's quite gone.  
Beauty ore-snowed and bareness every where,  
Then were not summer's distillation left  
A liquid prisoner penned in walls of glass,  
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,  
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.  
But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,  
Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.   

6  
THen let not winters wragged hand deface,  
In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:  
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,  
With beautits treasure ere it be self killed:  
That use is not forbidden usury,  
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;  
That's for thyself to breed an other thee,  
Or ten times happier be it ten for one,  
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,  
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee,  
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,  
Leaving thee living in posterity?  
Be not selfe-wild self-willed for thou art much too fair,  
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.   

7  
Lo in the Orient when the gracious light,  
Lists up his burning head, each under eye  
Doth homage to his new appearing sight,  
Serving with looks his sacred majesty,  
And having climbed the steep up heavenly hill,  
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,  
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,  
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:  
But when from high-most pitch with weary car,  
Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,  
The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are  
From his low tract and look an other way:  
So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:  
unlooked on diest-unlesse thou get a son.   

8  
MVsick to hear, why hearest thou music sadly,  
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:  
Why lov'st thou that which thou receaust not gladly,  
Or else receaus'st with pleasure thine annoy?  
If the true concord of well tuned sounds,  
By unions married do offend thine ear,  
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds  
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:  
Mark how one string sweet husband to an other,  
striketh each in each by mutual ordering;  
Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,  
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:  
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,  
Sings this to thee thou single wilt prove none.   

9  
IS it for fear to wet a widows eye,  
That thou consumest thyself in single life?  
Ah; if thou issueless shalt hap to die,  
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,  
The world willbe thy widow and still weep,  
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,  
When every private widow well may keep,  
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:  
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend  
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it  
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,  
And kept unusde the user so destroys it:  
No love toward others in that bosom sits  
That on himself such murderous shame commits.   

10  
FOr shame deny that thou bearest love to any  
Who for thyself art so unprovident  
Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,  
But that thou none lov'st is most evident:  
For thou art so possessed with murderous hate,  
That 'gainst thyself thou stickst not to conspire,  
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate  
Which to repair should be thy chief desire:  
O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,  
Shall hate be fairer lodged then gentle love?  
Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,  
Or to thyself at least kind hearted prove,  
Make thee an other self for love of me,  
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.   

11  
AS fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou growest,  
In one of thine, from that which thou departest,  
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest,  
Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,  
Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,  
Without this folly, age, and could decay,  
If all were minded so, the times should cease,  
And threescoore year would make the world away:  
Let those whom nature hath not made for store,  
Harsh, featurelesse, and rude, barrenly perish,  
Look whom she best endowed, she gave the more;  
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish,  
She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,  
Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.   

12  
WHen I do count the clock that tells the time,  
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,  
When I behold the violet past prime,  
And sable curls or silvered over with white:  
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,  
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd  
And summers green all girded up in sheaves  
Borne on the bear with white and bristly beard:  
Then of thy beauty do I question make  
That thou among the wastes of time must go,  
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,  
And die as fast as they see others grow,  
And nothing 'gainst Times sith can make defence  
Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.   

13  
O That you were yourself, but love you are  
No longer yours, than you yourself here live,  
Against this coming end you should prepare,  
And your sweet semblance to some other give.  
So should that beauty which you hold in lease  
Find no determination, than you were  
You self again after yourselves decease,  
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.  
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,  
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,  
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day  
And barren rage of deaths eternal cold?  
O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,  
You had a Father, let your Son say so.   

14  
NOt from the stars do I my judgement pluck,  
And yet me thinks I have Astronomy,  
But not to tell of good, or evil luck,  
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons quality,  
Nor can I fortune to breeze mynuits tell;  
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,  
Or say with Princes if it shall go well  
By oft predict that I in heaven find.  
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,  
And constant stars in them I read such art  
As truth and beauty shall together thrive  
If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert:  
 
Thy end is Truths and Beauty's doom and date.   

15  
WHen I consider every thing that grows  
Holds in perfection but a little moment.  
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows  
Whereon the Stars in secret influence comment.  
When I perceive that men as plants increase,  
Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:  
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,  
And were their brave state out of memory.  
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,  
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,  
Where wasteful time debateth with decay  
To change your day of youth to sullied night,  
And all in war with Time for love of you  
As he takes from you, I engrafted you new.   

16  
But wherefore do not you a mightier way  
Make war upon this bloody tyrant time?  
And fortify yourself in your decay  
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?  
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,  
And many maiden gardens yet unset,  
With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,  
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:  
So should the lines of life that life repair  
Which this (Time's pencil or my pupil pen)  
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair  
Can make you live yourself in eyes of men,  
To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,  
And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.   

17  
WHo will believe my verse in time to come  
If it were filled with your most high deserts?  
 
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:  
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,  
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,  
The age to come would say this Poet lies,  
Such heavenly touches near touched earthly faces.  
So should my papers (yellowed with their age)  
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,  
And your true rights be termed a Poet's rage,  
And stretched mitre of an antic song.  
But were some child of yours alive that time,  
You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.   

18.  
SHall I compare thee to a Summer's day?  
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:  
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,  
And summers lease hath all too short a date:  
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,  
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,  
And every fair from fair sometime declines,  
By chance, or natures changing course untrimmed:  
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade,  
Nor loose possession of that fair thou ow'st,  
Nor shall death brag thou wandr'st in his shade,  
When in eternal lines to time thou growest,  
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,  
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee,   

19  
Devouring time blunt thou the lions paws,  
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,  
Pluck thee keen teeth from the fierce tigers yawes,  
And burn the long lived Phoenix in her blood,  
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,  
And do what ere thou wilt swiftfooted time  
To the wide world and all her fading sweets:  
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,  
O carve not with thy hours my loves fair brow,  
Nor draw no lines there with thine antic pen,  
Him in thy course untainted do allow,  
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.  
Yet do thy worst old Time despite thy wrong,  
My love shall in my verse ever live young.   

20  
A Woman's face with natures own hand painted,  
Haste thou the Master Mistress of my passion,  
A woman's gentle heart but not acquainted  
With shifting change as is false women's fashion,  
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:  
Gild the object whereupon it gazeth,  
A man in hew all Hews in his controlling,  
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amasseth.  
And for a woman wert thou first created,  
Till nature as she wrought thee fell a doting,  
And by addition me of thee defeated,  
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.  
But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,  
Mine be thy love and thy loves use their treasure.   

21  
SO is it not with me as with that Muse,  
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,  
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use,  
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,  
Making a coopelment of proud compare  
With Sun and Moon, with earth and seas rich gems:  
With April's first borne flowers and all things rare,  
That heavens air in this huge rondure hems,  
O let me true in love but truly write,  
And then believe me, my love is as fair,  
As any mother's child, though not so bright  
As those gold candles fixed in heavens air:  
Let them say more that like of hearsay well,  
I will not praise that purpose not to sell.   

22  
MY glass shall not persuade me I am old,  
So long as youth and thou are of one date,  
But when in thee times forrwes I behold,  
Then look I death my days should expiate.  
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,  
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,  
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,  
How can I then be elder than thou art?  
O therefore love be of thyself so wary,  
As I not for myself, but for thee will,  
Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary  
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill,  
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,  
Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.   

23  
AS an unperfect actor on the stage,  
Who with his fear is put besides his part,  
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,  
Whose strengths abundance weakens his own heart;  
So I for fear of trust, forget to say,  
The perfect ceremony of loves right,  
And in mine own loves strength seem to decay,  
O'ercharged with burden of mine own loves might:  
O let my books be then the eloquence,  
And dumb presages of my speaking breast,  
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,  
More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.  
O learn to read what silent love hath writ,  
To hear wit eyes belongs to loves fine with.   

24  
MIne eye hath played the painter and hath steeled,  
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,  
My body is the frame wherein ti's held,  
And perspective it is best Painters art.  
For through the Painter must you see his skill,  
To find where your true image pictured lies,  
Which in my bosoms shop is hanging still,  
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:  
Now see what good-turns eyes for eyes have done,  
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me  
Are windows to my breast, wherethrough the Sun  
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee  
Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art  
They draw but what they see, know not the heart.   

25  
LEt those who are in favour with their stars,  
Of public honour and proud titles boast,  
Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars  
Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;  
Great Princes favourites their fair leaves spread,  
But as the marigold at the sun's eye,  
And in themselves their pride lies buried,  
For at a frown they in their glory die.  
The painful warrior famosed for worth,  
After a thousand victories once foiled,  
Is from the book of honour razed quite,  
And all the rest forgot for which he foiled:  
Then happy I that love and am beloved  
Where I may not remove, nor be removed.   

26  
LOrd of my love, to whom in vassalage  
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;  
To thee I send this written embassage  
To witness duty, not to show my wit.  
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine  
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;  
But that I hope some good conceit of thine  
In thy soul's thought (all naked) will bestow it:  
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,  
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,  
And puts apparel on my tottered loving,  
To show me worthy of their sweet respect,  
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,  
Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.   

27  
WEary with toil, I hast me to my bed,  
The dear repose for limbs with travail tired,  
But than begins a journey in my head  
To work my mind, when bodies work's expired.  
For than my thoughts (from far where I abide)  
Intent a zealous pilgrimage to thee,  
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,  
Looking on darkness which the blind do see.  
Save that my souls imaginary sight  
Presents their shaddoe to my sightles view,  
Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)  
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.  
Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,  
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.   

28  
HOw can I then return in happy plight  
That am debarred the benefit of rest?  
When days oppression is not eazd by night,  
But day by night and night by day oppressed.  
And each (though enemies to other's reign)  
Do in consent shake hands to torture me,  
The one by toil, the other to complain  
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.  
I tell the Day to please him thou art bright,  
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:  
So flatter I the swart complexioned night,  
When sparkling stars twire not thou guil'st th' even.  
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,  
And night doth nightly make griefs length seem stronger   

29  
WHen in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,  
I all alone beweep my outcast state,  
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,  
And look upon myself and curse my fate.  
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,  
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,  
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,  
With what I most enjoy contented least,  
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,  
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,  
(Like to the Lark at break of day arising)  
From sullen earth sings himns at heavens gate,  
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,  
That then I scorn to change my state with Kings.   

30  
WHen to the Sessions of sweet silent thought,  
I summon up remembrance of things past,  
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,  
And with old woes new wail my dear times waste:  
Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)  
For precious friends hid in deaths dateless night,  
And weep a fresh loves long since canceled woe,  
And moon th'expense of many a vannisht sight.  
Then can I grieve at grievances foregon,  
And heavily from woe to woe tell over  
The sad account of fore-bemoned moan,  
Which I new pay, as if not paid before.  
But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)  
All losses are restored, and sorrows end.   

31  
Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,  
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,  
And there reigns Love and all loves loving parts,  
And all those friends which I thought buried.  
How many a holy and obsequious tear  
Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye,  
As interest of the dead, which now appear,  
But things removed that hidden in there lie.  
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,  
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,  
Who all their parts of me to thee did give,  
That due of many, now is thine alone.  
Their images I loved, I view in thee,  
And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.   

32  
IF thou survive my well contented day,  
When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover  
And shalt by fortune once more re-suruay:  
These poor rude lines of thy deceased Lover:  
Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,  
And though they be outstripped by every pen,  
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,  
Exceeded by the height of happier men.  
Oh then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,  
Had my friends Muse grown with this growing age,  
A dearer birth than this his love had brought  
To march in ranks of better equipage:  
But since he died and Poets better prove,  
Theirs for their style i'll read▪ his for his love.   

33  
Full many a glorious morning have I seen,  
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,  
Kissing with golden face the meadows green;  
Guilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:  
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,  
With ugly rack on his celestial face,  
And from the forlorn world his visage hide  
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:  
Even so my Sun one early morn did shine,  
With all triumphant splendour on my brow,  
But out alack, he was but one hour mine,  
The region cloud hath masked him from me now.  
Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth.  
Suns of the world may stain, when heavens sun stainteh.   

34  
WHy didst thou promise such a beauteous day,  
And make me travail forth without my cloak,  
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,  
Hiding thy brau'ry in their rotten smoke.  
'tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,  
To dry the rain on my storme-beaten face,  
For no man well of such a salve can speak,  
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:  
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief,  
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,  
Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief  
To him that bears the strong offences loss.  
Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,  
And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.   

35  
NO more be grieved at that which thou hast done,  
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,  
Clouds and eclipses stain both Moon and Sun,  
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.  
All men make faults, and even I in this,  
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,  
Myself corrupting salving thy amiss,  
Excusing their sins more than their sins are:  
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,  
Thy adverse party is thy Advocate,  
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence,  
Such civil war is in my love and hate,  
That I an accessary needs must be,  
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me,   

36  
LEt me confess that we two must be twain,  
Although our undivided loves are one:  
So shall those blots that do with me remain,  
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.  
In our two loves there is but one respect,  
Though in our lives a separable spite,  
Which though it alter not loves sole effect,  
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from loves delight,  
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,  
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,  
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,  
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:  
But do not so, I love thee in such sort,  
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.   

37  
AS a decrepit father takes delight,  
To see his active child do deeds of youth,  
So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite  
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.  
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,  
Or any of these all, or all, or more  
Entitled in their parts, do crowned sit,  
I make my love engrafted to this store:  
So than I am not lame, poor, nor despised,  
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,  
That I in thy abundance am sufficed,  
And by a part of all thy glory live:  
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,  
This wish I have, than ten times happy me.   

38  
HOw can my Muse want subject to invent  
While thou dost breathe that poorest into my verse,  
Thine own sweet argument, to excellent,  
For every vulgar paper to rehearse:  
Oh give thyself the thanks if ought in me,  
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,  
For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,  
When thou thyself dost give invention light?  
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth  
Then those old nine which rhymers invocate,  
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth  
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.  
If my slight Muse do please these curious days,  
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.   

39  
OH how thy worth with manners may I sing,  
When thou art all the better part of me?  
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring;  
And what is't but mine own when I praise thee,  
Even for this, let us divided live,  
And our dear love loose name of single one,  
That by this separation I may give:  
That due to thee which thou deservest alone:  
Oh absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,  
Were it not thy four leisure gave sweet leave,  
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,  
Which time and thoughts so sweetly dost deceive.  
And that thou teachest how to make one twain,  
By praising him here who doth hence remain.   

40  
TAke all my loves, my love, yea take them all,  
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?  
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,  
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:  
Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,  
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,  
But yet be blamed, if thou this self deceivest  
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.  
I do forgive thy robb'rie gentle thief  
Although thou steal thee all my poverty:  
And yet love knows it is a greater grief  
To bear loves wrong, then hates known injury.  
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,  
Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.   

41  
THose pretty wrongs that liberty commits,  
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,  
〈…〉 full well befits,  
For still temptation follows where thou art.  
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,  
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.  
And when a woman woes, what woman's son,  
Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed.  
Ay me, but yet thou might'st my seat forbear,  
And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,  
Who lead thee in their riot even there  
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:  
Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,  
Thine by thy beauty being false to me.   

42  
THat thou hast her it is not all my grief,  
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,  
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,  
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.  
Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,  
Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her,  
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,  
Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her,  
If I lose thee, my loss is my loves gain,  
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,  
Both find each other, and I loose both twain,  
And both for my sake lay on me this cross,  
But here's the joy, my friend and I are one,  
Sweet flattery, than she loves but me alone.   

43  
WHen most I wink then do mine eyes best see,  
For all the day they view things unrespected,  
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,  
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.  
Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright,  
How would thy shadows form, form happy show,  
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,  
When to un-seeing eyes thy shade shines so?  
How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,  
By looking on thee in the living day?  
When in dead night their fair imperfect shade,  
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay?  
All days are nights to see till I see thee,  
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me,   

44  
IF the dull substance of my flesh were thought,  
Injurious distance should not stop my way,  
For then despite of space I would be brought,  
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,  
No matter then although my foot did stand  
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,  
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,  
As soon as think the place where he would be.  
But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought  
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,  
But that so much of earth and water wrought,  
I must attend, times leisure with my moan.  
Receiving naughts by elements so slow,  
But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.   

45  
THe other two, slight air, and purging fire,  
Are both with thee, where ever I abide,  
The first my thought, the other my desire,  
These present absent with swift motion slide.  
For when these quicker Elements are gone  
In tender Embassy of love to thee,  
My life being made of four, with two alone,  
Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.  
Until lives composition be recured,  
By those swift messengers returned from thee,  
Who even but now come back again assured,  
Of their fair health, recounting it to me.  
This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,  
I send them back again and strait grow sad.   

46  
MIne eye and heart are at a mortal war,  
How to divide the conquest of thy sight,  
Mine eye, my heart their pictures sight would bar,  
My heart, mine eye the freeedome of that right,  
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,  
(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)  
But the defendant doth that plea deny,  
And says in him their fair appearance lies.  
To side this title is impanelled  
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,  
And by their verdict is determined  
The clear eyes moyitie, and the dear hearts part.  
As thus, mine eyes due is their outward part,  
And my hearts right, their inward love of heart.   

47  
BEtwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,  
And each doth good turns now unto the other,  
When that mine eye is famished for a look,  
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;  
With my loves picture then my eye doth feast,  
And to the painted banquet bids my heart:  
An other time mine eye is my heart's guest,  
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.  
So either by thy picture or my love,  
thyself away, are present still with me,  
For thou nor farther than my thoughts canst move,  
And I am still with them, and they with thee.  
Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight  
Awakes my heart, to hearts and eyes delight.   

48  
HOw careful was I when I took my way,  
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,  
That to my use it might unused stay  
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust?  
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,  
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,  
Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,  
Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.  
Thee have I not locked up in any chest,  
Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,  
Within the gentle closure of my breast,  
From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,  
And even thence thou wilt be stolen I fear,  
For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.   

49  
AGainst that time (if ever that time come)  
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,  
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,  
Cauld to that audite by advised respects,  
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,  
And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,  
When love converted from the thing it was  
Shall reasons find of settled gravity.  
Against that time do I ensconce me here  
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,  
And this my hand, against myself uprear,  
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,  
To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,  
Since why to love, I can allege no cause.   

50  
HOw heavy do I journey on the way,  
When what I seek (my weary travels end)  
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say  
Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.  
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,  
Plods duly on, to bear that weight in me,  
As if by some instinct the wretch did know  
His rider loved not speed being made from thee:  
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,  
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,  
Which heavily he answers with a groan,  
More sharp to me then spurring to his side,  
For that same groan doth put this in my mind,  
My grief lies onward and my joy behind.   

51  
THus can my love excuse the slow offence,  
Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,  
From where thou art, why should I hast me thence,  
Till I return of posting is no need.  
O what excuse will my poor beast then find,  
When swift extremity can seem but slow,  
Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,  
In winged speed no motion shall I know,  
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,  
Therefore desire (of perfects love being made)  
Shall naigh no dull flesh in his fiery race,  
But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,  
Since from thee going, he went wilful slow,  
Towards thee i'll run, and give him leave to go.   

52  
SO am I as the rich whose blessed key,  
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,  
The which he will not every hour survey,  
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.  
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,  
Since seldom coming in the long year set,  
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,  
Or captain jewels in the carconet.  
So is the time that keeps you as my chest,  
Or as the wardrobe which the rob doth hide,  
To make some special instant special blest,  
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.  
Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,  
Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.   

53  
WHat is your substance, whereof are you made,  
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?  
Since every one, hath every one, one shade,  
And you but one, can every shadow lend:  
Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,  
Is poorly imitated after you,  
On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,  
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:  
Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,  
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,  
The other as your bounty doth appear,  
And you in every blessed shape we know.  
In all external grace you have some part,  
But you like none, none you for constant heart.   

54  
OH how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,  
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give,  
The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem  
For that sweet odor, which doth in it live:  
The Canker blooms have full as deep a die,  
As the perfumed tincture of the Roses,  
Hang on such thorns, and play as wanton,  
When summers breath their masked buds discloses:  
But for their virtue only is their show,  
They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,  
Die to themselves. Sweet Roses do not so,  
Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:  
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,  
When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.   

55  
NOt marble, nor the guilded monument,  
Of Princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,  
But you shall shine more bright in these contents  
Then unswept stone, besmeer'd with sluttish time.  
When wasteful war shall Statues overturn,  
And broils root out the work of masonry,  
Nor Mars his sword, nor wars quick fire shall burn:  
The living record of your memory.  
'Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity  
Shall you place forth, your praise shall still find room,  
Even in the eyes of all posterity  
That wear this world out to the ending doom.  
So till the judgement that yourself arise,  
You live in this, and dwell in lovers eyes.   

56  
Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said  
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,  
Which but too day by feeding is allayed,  
To morrow sharpened in his former might.  
So love be thou, although too day thou fill  
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fullness,  
Too morrow see again, and do not kill  
The spirit of Love, with a perpetual dullness:  
Let this sad Interim like the Ocean be  
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,  
Come daily to the banks, that when they see:  
Return of love, more blest may be the view.  
As call it Winter, which being full of care,  
Makes summers welcome, thrice more wished, more rare▪   

57  
BEing your slave what should I do but tend,  
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?  
I have no precious time at all to spend;  
Nor services to do till you require.  
Nor dare I chide the world without end hour,  
Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,  
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,  
When you have bid your servant once adieve.  
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,  
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,  
But like a sad slave stay and think of nought  
Save where you are, how happy you make those.  
So true a fool is love, that in your Will,  
(Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.   

58  
THat God forbid, that made me first your slave,  
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,  
Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,  
Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.  
Oh let me suffer (being at your beck)  
Th' imprisoned absence of your liberty,  
And patience tame, to sufferance bide each check,  
Without accusing you of injury.  
Be where you list, your charter is so strong,  
That you yourself may privilege your time  
To what you will, to you it doth belong,  
Yourself to pardon of selfe-doing crime.  
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,  
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.   

59  
IF their be nothing new, but that which is,  
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,  
Which labouring for invention bear amiss  
The second burden of a former child?  
Oh that record could with a backward look,  
Even of five hundredth courses of the Sun,  
Show me your image in some antic book,  
Since mind at first in carrecter was done.  
That I might see what the old world could say,  
To this composed wonder of your frame,  
Whether we are mended, or where better they,  
Or whether revolution be the same.  
Oh sure I am the wits of former days,  
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.   

60  
LIke as the waves make towards the pibled shore,  
So do our minutes hasten to their end,  
Each changing place with that which goes before,  
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.  
Nativity once in the main of light.  
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,  
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,  
And time that gave, doth now his gift confound.  
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,  
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,  
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,  
And nothing stands but for his sith to mow.  
And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand  
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.   

61  
IS it thy will, thy Image should keep open  
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?  
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,  
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?  
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee  
So far from home into my deeds to pry,  
To find out shames and idle hours in me,  
The scope and tenure of thy jealousy▪  
O no, thy love though much, is not so great,  
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,  
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,  
To play the watchman ever for thy sake.  
For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,  
From me far of, with others all to near.   

62  
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,  
And all my soul, and all my every part;  
And for this sin there is no remedy,  
It is so grounded inward in my heart.  
Me thinks no face so gracious is as mine,  
No shape so true, no truth of such account,  
And for myself mine own worth do define,  
As I all other in all worths surmount.  
But when my glass shows me myself indeed  
Beated and chopped with tanned antiquity,  
Mine own self love quite contrary I read  
Self, so self loving were iniquity,  
'tis thee (my self) that for myself I praise,  
Painting my age with beauty of thy days,   

63  
AGainst my love shall be as I am now  
With times injurious hand chrusht and o'erworn,  
When hours have dreind his blood and filled his brow  
With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn  
Hath travailed on to Ages steepy night,  
And all those beauties whereof now he's king  
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,  
Stealing away the treasure of his Spring.  
For such a time do I now fortify  
Against confounding Ages cruel knife,  
That he shall never cut from memory  
My sweet loves beauty, though my lovers life.  
His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,  
And they shall live, and he in them still green.   

64  
WHen I have seen by times fell hand defaced  
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age,  
When sometime lofty towers I see down razed,  
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.  
When I have seen the hungry Ocean gain  
Advantage on the Kingdom of the shore,  
And the firm soil win of the watery main,  
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.  
When I have seen such interchange of state,  
Or state itself confounded, to decay,  
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate  
That Time will come and take my love away.  
This thought is as a death which cannot choose  
But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.   

65  
SInce brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,  
But sad mortality ore-swaies their power,  
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,  
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?  
O how shall summer's honey breath hold out,  
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,  
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,  
Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?  
O fearful meditation, where alack,  
Shall times best jewel from times chest lie hid?  
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,  
Or who his spoil or beauty can forbid?  
O none, unless this miracle have might,  
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.   

66  
Tired with all these for restful death I cry,  
As to behold desert a beggar borne,  
And needy Nothing trimmed in jollity,  
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,  
And gilded honour shamefully misplast,  
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,  
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,  
And strength by limping sway disabled,  
And art made tung-tide by authority,  
And Folly (Doctorlike) controlling skill,  
And simple-Truth miscalde Simplicity,  
And captive-good attending Captain ill.  
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,  
Save that to die, I leave my love alone.   

67  
AH wherefore with infection should he live,  
And with his presence grace impiety,  
That sin by him advantage should achieve,  
And lace itself with his society?  
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,  
And steal dead seeing of his living hue?  
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek,  
Roses of shadow, since his Rose is true?  
Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is,  
Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins,  
For she hath no exchequer now but his,  
And proud of many, lives upon his gains?  
O him she stores, to show what wealth she had,  
In days long since, before these last so bad.   

68  
THus is his cheek the map of days outworn,  
When beauty lived and dy'ed as flowers do now,  
Before these bastard signs of fair were borne,  
Or durst inhabit on a living brow▪  
Before the golden tresses of the dead,  
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,  
To live a scond life on second head,  
Ere beauties dead fleece made another gay:  
In him those holy antic hours are seen,  
Without all ornament, itself and true,  
Making no summer of an others green,  
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,  
And him as for a map doth Nature store,  
To show false Art what beauty was of yore.   

69  
THose parts of thee that the world's eye doth view,  
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:  
All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that end,  
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes Commend.  
Their outward thus with outward praise is crowned,  
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,  
In other accents do this praise confound  
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.  
They look into the beauty of thy mind,  
And that in guess they measure by thy deeds,  
Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)  
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds,  
But why thy odor matcheth not thy show,  
The solely is this, that thou dost common grow.   

70  
THat thou are blamed shall not be thy defect,  
For slanders mark was ever yet the fair,  
The ornament of beauty is suspect,  
A Crow that flies in heavens sweetest air.  
So thou be good, slander doth but approve,  
Their worth the greater being wooed of time,  
For Canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,  
And thou presentest a pure unstayined prime.  
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,  
Either not assailed, or victor being charged,  
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,  
To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,  
If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,  
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.   

71  
No Longer mourn for me when I am dead,  
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell  
Give warning to the world that I am fled  
From this vile world with vildest worms to dwell:  
Nay if you read this line, remember not,  
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,  
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,  
If thinking on me then should make you woe.  
O if (I say) you look upon this verse,  
When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,  
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;  
But let your love even with my life decay.  
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,  
And mock you with me after I am gone.   

72  
O Lest the world should task you to recite,  
What merit lived in me that you should love  
After my death (dear love) for get me quite,  
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.  
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,  
To do more for me then mine own desert,  
And hang more praise upon deceased I,  
Then niggard truth would willingly impart:  
O lest your true love may seem false in this,  
That you for love speak well of me untrue,  
My name be buried where my body is,  
And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.  
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,  
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.   

73  
THat time of yeeare thou mayst in me behold,  
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang  
Upon those boughs which shake against the could,  
Bore rn'wd quires, where late the sweet birds sang.  
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,  
As after Sunset fadeth in the West,  
Which by and by black night doth take away,  
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.  
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,  
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,  
As the death bed, whereon it must expire,  
Consumed with that which it was nurrisht by.  
This thou perceu'st, which makes thy love more strong,  
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.   

74  
But be contented when that fell arrest,  
With out all bail shall carry me away,  
My life hath in this line some interest,  
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.  
When thou revewest this, thou dost revew,  
The very part was consecrate to thee,  
The earth can have but earth, which is his due,  
My spirit is thine the better part of me,  
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,  
The pray of worms, my body being dead,  
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,  
To base of thee to be remembered,  
The worth of that, is that which it contains,  
And that is this, and this with thee remains.   

75  
SO are you to my thoughts as food to life,  
Or as sweet seasoned showers are to the ground;  
And for the peace of you I hold such strife,  
As twixt a miser and his wealth is found.  
Now proud as an injoyer, and anon  
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,  
Now counting best to be with you alone,  
Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,  
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,  
And by and by clean starved for a look,  
Possessing or pursuing no delight  
Save what is had, or must from you be took.  
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,  
Or gluttoning on all, or all away,   

76  
WHy is my verse so barren of new pride?  
So far from variation or quick change?  
Why with the time do I not glance aside  
To new found methods, and to compounds strange?  
Why write I still all one, ever the same,  
And keep invention in a noted weed,  
That every word doth almost fell my name,  
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?  
O know sweet love I always write of you,  
And you and love are still my argument:  
So all my best is dressing old words new,  
Spending again what is already spent:  
For as the Sun is daily new and old,  
So is my love still telling what is told,   

77  
THy glass will show thee how thy beauties were,  
Thy dial how thy precious mynuits' waste,  
 
And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.  
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,  
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory,  
Thou by thy dials shady stealth mayst know,  
Times thievish progress to eternity.  
Look what thy memory cannot contain,  
Commit to these waste blacks, and thou shalt find  
Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,  
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.  
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,  
Shall profit thee▪ and much enrich thy book.   

78  
SO oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,  
And found such fair assistance in my verse,  
As every Alien pen hath got my use,  
And under thee their poesy disperse.  
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,  
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,  
Have added feathers to the learneds wing,  
And given grace a double Majesty.  
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,  
Whose influence is thine, and borne of thee,  
In others works thou dost but mend the style,  
And Arts with thy sweet graces graced be.  
But thou art all my art, and dost advance  
As high as learning, my rude ignorance.   

79  
WHilst I alone did call upon thy aid,  
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,  
But now my gracious numbers are decayed,  
And my sick Muse doth give an other place.  
I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument  
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,  
Yet what of thee thy Poet doth invent,  
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again,  
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word  
From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give  
And found it in thy cheek: he can afford  
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.  
Then thank him not for that which he doth say,  
Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.   

80  
O How I faint when I of you do write,  
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,  
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,  
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.  
But since your worth (wide as the Ocean is)  
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,  
My saucy bark (inferior far to his)  
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.  
Your shallowest help will hold me up a float,  
Whilst he upon your soundlesse deep doth ride,  
Or (being wracked) I am a worthless boat,  
He of tall building, and of goodly pride.  
Then If he thrive and I be cast away,  
The worst was this, my love was my decay.   

81  
OR I shall live your Epitaph to make,  
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,  
From hence your memory death cannot take,  
Although in me each part will be forgotten.  
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,  
Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,  
The earth can yield me but a common grave,  
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie,  
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,  
Which eyes not yet created shall o'erread,  
And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,  
When all the breathers of this world are dead,  
You still shall live (such virtue hath my Pen)  
Where breath most breaths, even in the mouths of men.   

82  
I Grant thou wert not married to my Muse,  
And therefore mayest without attaint o'erlook  
The dedicated words which writers use  
Of their fair subject, blessing every book.  
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,  
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,  
And therefore art enforced to seek anew,  
Some fresher stamp of the time bettering days.  
And do so love, yet when they have devised,  
What strained touches Rhetoric can lend,  
Thou truly fair, wert truly simpathizde,  
In true plain words, by thy true telling friend.  
And their gross painting might be better used,  
Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.   

83  
I Never saw that you did painting need,  
And therefore to your fair no painting set,  
I found (or thought I sound) you did exceed,  
The barren tender of a Poet's debt:  
And therefore have I slept in your report,  
That you yourself being extant well might show,  
How far a modern quill doth come to short,  
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow,  
This silence for my sin you did impute,  
Which shall be most my glory being dumb,  
For I impair not beauty being mute,  
When others would give life, and bring a tomb.  
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,  
Then both your Poets can in praise devise.   

84  
WHo is it that says most, which can say more,  
Then this rich praise, that you alone, are you,  
In whose confine immured is the store,  
Which should example where your equal grew,  
Lean penury within that Pen doth dwell,  
That to his subject lends not some small glory,  
But he that writes of you, if he can tell,  
That you are you, so dignifies his story.  
Let him but copy what in you is writ,  
Not making worse what nature made so clear,  
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,  
Making his style admired every where.  
You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,  
Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.   

85  
MY tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,  
While comments of your praise richly compiled,  
Reserve their Character with golden quill,  
And precious phrase by all the Muses filled.  
I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,  
And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,  
To every Hymn that able spirit affords,  
In polished form of well refined pen.  
Hearing you praised, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,  
And to the most of praise add something more,  
But that is in my thought, whose love to you  
(Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,  
Than others, for the breath of words respect,  
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.   

86  
WAs it the proud full sail of his great verse,  
Bound for the prize of (all to precious) you,  
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearce,  
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?  
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,  
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?  
No, neither he, nor his compiers by night  
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.  
He nor that affable familiar ghost  
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,  
As victors of my silence cannot boast,  
I was not sick of any fear from thence.  
But when your countenance filled up his line,  
Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.   

87  
FArewell thou art too dear for my possessing,  
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,  
The Cha●ter of thy worth gives thee releasing:  
My bonds in thee are all determinate.  
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,  
And for that riches where is my deserving?  
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,  
And so my patent back again is swerving.  
Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth than not knowing,  
Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking,  
So thy great gift upon misprision growing,  
Comes home again, on better judgement making.  
Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,  
In sleep a King, but waking no such matter.   

88  
WHen thou shalt be dispode to set me light,  
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,  
Upon thy side, against myself i'll fight,  
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:  
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,  
Upon thy part I can set down a story  
Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:  
That thou in losing me, shall win much glory:  
And I by this will be a gainer too,  
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,  
The injuries that to myself I do,  
Doing thee vantage, double vantage me.  
Such is my love, to thee I so belong,  
That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.   

89  
SAy that thou didst forsake me for some fault,  
And I will comment upon that offence,  
Speak of my lameness, and I strait will halt:  
Against thy reasons making no defence.  
Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,  
To set a form upon desired change,  
As i'll myself disgrace, knowing thy will,  
I will acquaintance strangle and look strange:  
Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue,  
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,  
Lest I (too much proface) should do it wrong:  
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.  
For thee, against myself i'll vow debate,  
For I must near love him whom thou dost hate.   

90  
THen hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,  
Now while the world is bend my deeds to cross,  
join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,  
And do not drop in for an after loss:  
Ah do not, when my heart hath scaped this sorrow,  
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,  
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,  
To linger out a purposed overthrow.  
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,  
When other petty griefs have done their spite,  
But in the onset come, so stall I taste  
At first the very worst of fortune's might.  
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,  
Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.   

91  
SOme glory in their birth, some in their skill,  
Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,  
Some in their garments though newfangled ill:  
Some in their Hawks and Hounds, some in their Horse.  
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,  
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,  
But these particulars are not my measure,  
All these I better in one general best.  
 
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments cost,  
Of more delight than Hawks or Horses be:  
And having thee, of all men's pride I boast.  
Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,  
All this away, and me most wretched make.   

92  
But do thy worst to steal thyself away,  
For term of life thou art assured mine,  
And life no longer than thy love will stay,  
For it depends upon that love of thine.  
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,  
When in the least of them my life hath end,  
I see, a better state to me belongs  
Then that, which on thy humour doth depend.  
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,  
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,  
Oh what a happy title do I find,  
Happy to have thy love, happy to die!  
But what's so blessed fair that fears no blot,  
Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.   

93  
SO shall I live, supposing thou art true,  
Like a deceived husband, so loves face,  
May still seem love to me, though altered new:  
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.  
For their can live no hatred in thine eye,  
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,  
In manies looks, the false heart's history  
Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange,  
But heaven in thy creation did decree,  
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,  
What ere thy thoughts, or thy hearts workings be,  
Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.  
How like Eaves apple doth thy beauty grow,  
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.   

94  
THey that have power to hurt, and will do none,  
That do not do the thing, they most do show,  
Who moving others, are themselves as stone,  
unmoved, could, and to temptation slow:  
They rightly do inherit heavens graces,  
And husband natures riches from expense,  
They are the Lords and owners of their faces,  
Others, but stewards of their excellence:  
The summers flower is to the summer sweet,  
Though to itself, it only live and die,  
But if that flower with base infection meet,  
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:  
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,  
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.   

95  
HOw sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,  
Which like a canker in the fragrant Rose,  
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name?  
Oh in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!  
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,  
(Making lascivious comments on thy sport)  
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,  
Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.  
Oh what a mansion have those vices got,  
Which for their habitation chose out thee,  
Where beauties vail doth cover every blot,  
And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!  
Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,  
The hardest knife ill used doth lose his edge.   

96  
SOme say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,  
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,  
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:  
Thou mak'st faults graces, that to thee resort:  
As on the finger of a throned Queen,  
The basest jewel will be well esteemed:  
So are those errors that in thee are seen,  
To truths translated, and for true things deemed.  
How many Lambs might the stern Wolf betray.  
If like a Lamb he could his looks translate.  
How many gazers might'st thou lead away,  
If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state?  
But do not so, I love thee in such sort,  
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.   

97  
HOw like a Winter hath my absence been  
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year?  
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen?  
What old December's bareness every where?  
And yet this time removed was summers time,  
The teeming Autumn big with rich increase,  
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,  
Like widowed wombs after their Lord's decease:  
Yet this abundant issue seemed to me,  
But hope of Orphans, and un-fathered fruit,  
For Summer and his pleasures wait on thee,  
And thou away, the very birds are mute.  
Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,  
That leaves look pale, dreading the Winter's near.   

98  
FRom you have I been absent in the spring,  
When proud pied April (dressed in all his trim)  
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:  
That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him.  
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell  
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,  
Could make me any summer's story tell:  
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:  
Nor did I wonder at the Lilies white,  
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the Rose,  
They wear but sweet, but figures of delight:  
Drawn after you, you pattern or all those.  
Yet seemed it Winter still, and you away,  
As with your shadow I with these did play.   

99  
THe forward violet thus did I chide,  
Sweet thief whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells  
If not from my loves breath, the purple pride,  
Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells?  
In my loves veins thou hast too grossly died,  
The Lily I condemned for thy hand,  
And buds of marierom had stolen thy hair,  
The Roses fearfully on thorns did stand,  
Our blushing shame, an other white despair:  
A third nor red, nor white, had stolen of both,  
And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,  
But for his theft in pride of all his growth  
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.  
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,  
But sweet, or colour it had stolen from thee.   

100  
WHere art thou Muse that thou forgettest so long,  
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?  
Spendst thou thy fury on some worthless song,  
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light.  
Return forgetful Muse, and strait redeem,  
In gentle numbers time so idly spent,  
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,  
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.  
Rise resty Muse, my loves sweet face survey,  
If time have any wrinkle graven there,  
If any, be a Satire to decay,  
And make times spoils despised every where.  
Give my love fame faster than time wastes life,  
So thou prevenst his sith, and crooked knife.   

101  
OH truant Muse what shallbe thy amends,  
For thy neglect of truth in beauty died?  
Both truth and beauty on my love depends:  
So dost thou too, and therein dignified:  
Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,  
Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,  
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:  
But best is best, if never intermixed.  
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?  
Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee,  
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb:  
And to be praised of ages yet to be.  
Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,  
To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.   

102  
MY love is strengthened though more weak in seeming  
I love not less, though less the show appear,  
That love is marchandized, whose rich esteeming,  
The owner's tongue doth publish every where.  
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,  
When I was wont to greet it with my lays,  
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,  
And stops his pipe in growth of riper days:  
Not that the summer is less pleasant now  
Then when her mournful himns did hush the night,  
But that wild music burdens every bow,  
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.  
Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:  
Because I would not dull you with my song.   

103  
A Lack what poverty my Muse brings forth,  
That having such a scope to show her pride,  
The argument all bare is of more worth  
Then when it hath my added praise beside.  
Oh blame me not if I no more can write!  
Look in your glass and there appears a face,  
That overgoes my blunt invention quite,  
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.  
Were it not sinful then striving to mend,  
To mar the subject that before was well,  
For to no other pass my verses tend,  
Then of your graces and your gifts to tell.  
And more, much more than in my verse can sit,  
Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.   

104  
TO me fair friend you never can be old,  
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,  
Such seems your beauty still: Three Winters cold,  
Have from the forests shook three summer's pride,  
Three beauteous springs to yellow Autumn turned,  
In process of the seasons have I seen,  
Three April perfumes in three hot Iunes burned,  
Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.  
Ah yet doth beauty like a Dial hand,  
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,  
So your sweet hue, which me thinks still doth stan.  
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.  
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,  
Ere you were borne was beauties summer dead.   

105  
LEt not my love be called Idolatry,  
Nor my beloved as an Idol show,  
Since all alike my songs and praises be  
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.  
Kind is my love to day, to morrow kind,  
Still constant in a wondrous excellence,  
Therefore my verse to constancy cozened,  
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.  
Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,  
Fair, kind and true, varrying to other words,  
And in this change is my invention spent,  
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.  
Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.  
Which three till now, never kept seat in one.   

106  
WHen in the Chronicle of wasted time,  
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,  
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,  
In praise of Ladies dead, and lovely Knights,  
Then in the blazon of sweet beauties best,  
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,  
I see their antic Pen would have expressed,  
Even such a beauty as you master now.  
So all their praises are but prophecies  
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,  
And for they looked but with divining eyes,  
They had not still enough your worth to sing:  
For we which now behold these present days,  
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.   

107  
NOt mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,  
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,  
Can yet the lease of my true love control,  
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.  
The mortal Moon hath her eclipse indur'de,  
And the sad Augurs mock their own presage,  
Incertenties now crown themselves assured,  
And peace proclaims Olives of endless age,  
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,  
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,  
Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,  
While he insults over dull and speechless tribes.  
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,  
When tyrants crests and tombs of brass are spent.   

108  
WHat's in the brain that Ink may character,  
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit,  
What's new to speak, what now to register,  
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?  
Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,  
I must each day say over the very same,  
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,  
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.  
So that eternal love in loves fresh case,  
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,  
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,  
But makes antiquity for aye his page,  
Finding the first conceit of love there bred,  
Where time and outward form would show it dead,   

109  
O Never say that I was false of heart,  
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,  
As easy might I from myself depart,  
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:  
That is my home of love, if I have ranged,  
Like him that travels I return again,  
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,  
So that myself bring water for my stain,  
Never believe though in my nature reigned,  
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,  
That it could so preposterously be stained,  
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:  
For nothing this wide Universe I call,  
Save thou my Rose, in it thou art my all.   

110  
ALas 'tis true, I have gone here and there,  
And made myself a motley to the view,  
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,  
Made old offences of affections new.  
Most true it is, that I have looked on truth  
Askance and strangely: But by all above,  
These blenches gave my heart an other youth,  
And worse essays proved thee my best of love,  
Now all is done, have what shall have no end,  
Mine appetite I never more will grin'de  
On newer proof, to try an older friend,  
A God in love, to whom I am confined.  
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,  
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.   

111  
O For my sake do you wish fortune chide,  
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,  
That did not better for my life provide,  
Then public means which public manners breeds.  
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,  
And almost thence my nature is subdued  
To what it works in, like the Dyers hand,  
Pity me then, and wish I were renu'de,  
Whilst like a willing patient I will drink,  
Potions of easel 'gainst my strong infection,  
No bitterness that I will bitter think,  
Nor double penance to correct correction.  
Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,  
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.   

112  
YOur love and pity doth th'impression fill,  
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,  
For what care I who calls me well or ill,  
So you ore-greene my bad, my good allow?  
You are my All the world, and I must strive,  
To know my shames and praises from your tongue,  
None else to me, nor I to none alive,  
That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong,  
In so profound Abysm I throw all care  
Of others voices, that my Adder's sense,  
To cryttick and to flatterer stopped are:  
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.  
You are so strongly in my purpose bred,  
That all the world besides me thinks y'are dead.   

113  
SInce I left you, mine eye is in my mind,  
And that which governs me to go about,  
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,  
Seems seeing, but effectually is out.  
For it no form delivers to the heart  
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth lack,  
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,  
Nor his own vision h●●ds what it doth catch:  
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,  
The most sweet-favor or deformedst creature,  
The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:  
The Croe, or Dove, it shapes them to your feature.  
Incapable of more replete, with you,  
My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.   

114  
OR whether doth my mind being crowned with you  
Drink up the monarchs plague this flattery?  
Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,  
And that your love taught it this Alchemy?  
To make of monsters, and things indigest,  
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,  
Creating every bad a perfect best  
As fast as objects to his beams assemble:  
Oh 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,  
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,  
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is greeing,  
And to his palate doth prepare the cup.  
If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,  
That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.   

115  
THose lines that I before have writ do lie,  
Even those that said I could not love you dearer,  
Yet than my judgement knew no reason why,  
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.  
But reckoning time, whose milliond accidents  
Creep in twixt vows, and change decrees of Kings,  
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharpest intents,  
Divert strong minds to th' course of altering things:  
Alas why fearing of times tryanny,  
Might I not then say now I love you best,  
When I was certain o'er in-certainty,  
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest:  
Love is a Babe, then might I not say so  
To give full growth to that which still doth grow.   

119  
LEt me not to the marriage of true minds  
Admit impediments, love is not love  
Which altars when it alteration finds,  
Or bends with the remover to remove.  
O no, it is an ever fixed mark  
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;  
It is the star to every wandering bark,  
Whose worths unkowne, although his height be taken.  
Loves not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks  
Within his bending sickles compass come,  
Love altars not with his brief hours and weeks,  
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:  
If this be error and upon me proved,  
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.   

117  
ACcuse me thus, that I have scanted all,  
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,  
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,  
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,  
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,  
And given to time your own dear purchased right,  
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds  
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.  
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,  
And on just proof surmise, accumilate,  
Bring me within the level of your frown,  
But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:  
Since my appeal says I did strive to prove  
The constancy and virtue of your love   

118  
LIke as to make our appetites more keen  
With eager compounds we our palate urge,  
As to prevent our maladies unseen,  
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.  
Even so being full of your near cloying sweetness,  
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;  
And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,  
To be diseased ere that there was true needing.  
Thus policy in love t'anticipate  
The ills that were, not grew to faults assured,  
And brought to medicine a healthful state  
Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.  
But thence I learn and find the lesson true,  
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.   

119  
WHat potions have I drunk of Siren tears  
distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,  
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,  
Still losing when I saw myself to win?  
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,  
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never?  
How have mine eyes out of their Spheres been fitted  
In the distraction of this madding fever?  
O benefit of ill, now I find true  
That better is, by evil still made better.  
And ruin'd love when it is built anew  
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.  
So I return rebuked to my content,  
And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.   

120  
THat you were once unkind befriends me now,  
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,  
Needs must I under my transgression bow,  
Unless my Nerves were brass or hammered steel.  
For if you were by my unkindness shaken  
As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of Time,  
And I a tyrant have no leisure taken  
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.  
O that our night of woe might have remembered  
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,  
And soon to you, as you to me then tendered  
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!  
But that your trespass now becomes a fee,  
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.   

121  
'tIS better to be vile then vile esteemed,  
When not to be, receives reproach of being,  
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,  
Not by our feeling, but by others seeing.  
For why should others false adulterate eyes  
Give salutation to my sportive blood?  
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies;  
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?  
No, I am that I am, and they that level  
At my abuses, reckon up their own,  
I may be strait though they themselves be bevel  
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown  
Unless this general evil they maintain,  
All men are bad and in their badness reign.   

122.  
TThy gift,, thy tables, are within my brain  
Full charactered with lasting memory,  
Which shall above that idle rank remain  
Beyond all date even to eternity.  
Or at the least, so long as brain and heart  
Have faculty by nature to subsist,  
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part  
Of thee, thy record never can be missed:  
That poor retention could not so much hold,  
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,  
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,  
To trust those tables that receive thee more,  
To keep an adiunckt to remember thee,  
Were to import forgetfulness in me.   

123  
NO! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,  
Thy pyramids built up with newer might  
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,  
They are but dress of a former sight:  
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire,  
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,  
And rather make them borne to our desire,  
Then think that we before have heard them told:  
Thy registers and thee I both defy,  
Not wondering at the present, nor the past,  
For thy records, and what we see doth lie,  
Made more or les by thy continual haste:  
This I do vow and this shall ever be,  
I will be true despite thy sith and thee.   

124  
IF my dear love were but the child of state,  
It might for fortune's bastard be unfathered,  
As subject to times love, or to times hate,  
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.  
No it was builded far from accident,  
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls  
Under the blow of thralled discontent,  
Whereto th'inviting time our fashion calls:  
It fears not policy that Heretic,  
Which works on leases of short numbered hours,  
But all alone stands hugely politic,  
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.  
To this I witness call the fools of time,  
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.   

125  
Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,  
With my extern the outward honouring,  
Or laid great bases for eternity,  
Which proves more short than waist or ruining?  
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour  
Lose all, and more by paying too much rend  
For compound sweet; Foregoing simple savour,  
Pitiful thrivors in their gazing spent.  
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,  
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,  
Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,  
But mutual render, only me for thee.  
Hence, thou suborned Informer, a true soul  
When most impeached, stands least in thy control.   

126  
O Thou my lovely Boy who in thy power,  
Dost hold times fickle glass, his sickle, hour:  
Who hast by waning grown, and therein shou'st,  
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self growest.  
If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)  
As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,  
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill.  
May time disgrace, and wretched minute kill.  
Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,  
She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!  
Her Audite (though delayed) answered must be,  
And her Quietus is to render thee.   

127  
IN the old age black was not counted fair,  
Or if it wear it bore not beauty's name:  
But now is black beauties successive heir,  
And Beauty slandered with a bastard shame,  
For since each hand hath put on Nature's power,  
Fairing the soul with Arts false borrowed face,  
Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,  
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.  
Therefore my Mistersse eyes are Raven black,  
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,  
At such who not borne fair no beauty lack,  
Slandering Creation with a false esteem,  
Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,  
That every tongue says beauty should look so.   

128  
HOw oft when thou my music music play'st,  
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds  
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently swayst,  
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,  
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,  
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,  
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,  
At the woods boldness by thee blushing stand.  
To be so tikled they would change their state,  
And situation with those dancing chips,  
o'er whom their fingers walk with gentle gate,  
Making dead wood more blest than living lips,  
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,  
Give them their fingers, me thy lips to kiss.   

129  
TH'expense of Spirit in a waste of shame  
Is lust in action, and till action, lust  
Is perjured, murderous, bloody full of blame,  
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,  
Enjoyed no sooner but despised strait,  
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had  
Past reason hated as a swollowed bait,  
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.  
Made In pursut and in possession so,  
Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,  
A bliss in proof and proud and very woe,  
Before a joy proposed behind a dream,  
All this the world well knows yet none knows well,  
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.   

130  
MY Mistress eyes are nothing like the Sun,  
Coral is far more red, than her lips red,  
If snow be white why then her breasts are dun:  
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:  
I have seen Roses damaskt, red and white,  
But no such Roses see I in her cheeks,  
And in some perfumes is there more delight,  
Then in the breath that from my Mistress reeks.  
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,  
That Music hath a far more pleasing sound:  
I grant I never saw a goddess go,  
My Mistress when she walks treads on the ground.  
And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,  
As any she belied with false compare.   

131  
THou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,  
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;  
For well thou knowst to my dear doting heart  
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.  
Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,  
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;  
To say they err, I dare not be so bold,  
Although I swear it to myself alone.  
And to be sure that is not false I swear  
A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,  
One on another's neck do witness bear  
Thy black is fairest in my judgements place.  
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,  
And thence this slander as I think proceeds.   

132  
THine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,  
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,  
Have put on black, and loving mourners be,  
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.  
 
Better becomes the grey cheeks of th' East,  
Nor that full Star that ushers in the Even  
Doth half that glory to the sober West  
As those two morning eyes become thy face:  
O let it then as well beseem thy heart  
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,  
And suit thy pity like in every part.  
Then will I swear beauty herself is black,  
And all they foul that thy complexion lack.   

133  
BEshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan  
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;  
ist not enough to torture me alone,  
But slave to slavery my sweetest friend must be.  
Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,  
And my next self thou harder haste engrossed,  
Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken,  
A torment thrice threefold thus to be crossed:  
Prison my heart in thy steel bosoms ward,  
But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bale,  
Who ere keeps me, let my heart be his guard,  
Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail.  
And yet thou wilt, for I being penned in thee,  
Perforce am thine and all that is in me.   

134  
SO now I have confessed that he is thine,  
And I myself am mortgaged to thy will,  
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine,  
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:  
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,  
For thou art covetous, and he is kind,  
He learned but surerie-like to write for me,  
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.  
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,  
Thou usurer that puttest forth all to use,  
And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,  
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.  
Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,  
He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.   

135  
WHo ever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,  
And Will too boot, and Will in overplus,  
More than enough am I that vex thee still,  
To thy sweet will making addition thus.  
Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious.  
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine,  
Shall will in others seem right gracious,  
And in my will no fair acceptance shine:  
The sea all water, yet receives rain still,  
And in abundance addeth to his store,  
So thou being rich in Will add to thy Will,  
One will of mine to make thy large Will more.  
Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,  
Think all but one, and me in that one Will.   

136  
IF thy soul check thee that I come so near,  
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,  
And will thy soul knows is admitted there,  
Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.  
Will, will fulfil the treasure of thy love,  
I fill it full with wills, and my will one,  
In things of great receipt with ease we prove.  
Among a number one is reckoned none.  
Then in the number let me pass untold,  
Though in thy stores account I one must be,  
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,  
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.  
Make but my name thy love, and love that still,  
And then thou lovest me for my name is Will.   

137  
THou blind fool love, what dost thou to mine eyes,  
That they behold and see not what they see:  
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,  
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.  
If eyes corrupt by over-partiall looks,  
Be anchor in the bay where all men ride,  
Why of eyes falsehood hast thou forged hooks,  
Whereto the judgement of my heart is tie?  
Why should my heart think that a several plot,  
Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?  
Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not  
To put fair truth upon so foul a face,  
In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,  
And to this false plague are they now transferred.   

138  
WHen my love swears that she is made of truth,  
I do believe her though I know she lies,  
That she might think me some untuterd youth,  
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.  
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,  
Although she knows my days are passed the best,  
Simply I credit her false speaking tongue,  
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:  
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?  
And wherefore say not I that I am old?  
O loves best habit is in seeming trust,  
And age in love, loves not t'have years told.  
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,  
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.   

139  
O Call not me to justify the wrong,  
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,  
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,  
Use power with power, and slay me not by Art,  
Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,  
Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,  
What needst thou wound with cunning when thy might  
Is more than my oreprest defence can bide?  
Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,  
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,  
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,  
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:  
Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,  
Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.   

140  
BE wise as thou art cruel, do not press  
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:  
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,  
The manner of my pity wanting pain.  
If I might teach thee wit better it wear,  
Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,  
As testy sick-men when their deaths be near,  
No news but health from their Physicians know.  
For if I should despair I should grow mad,  
And in my madness might speak ill of thee,  
Now this ill wresting world is grown so bad,  
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.  
That I may not be so, nor thou belyde,  
Bear thine eyes strait, though thy proud heart go wide.   

141  
IN faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,  
For they in thee a thousand errors note,  
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,  
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.  
Nor are mine ears with thy tongues tune delighted,  
Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,  
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited  
To any sensual feast with thee alone:  
But my five wits, nor my five senses can  
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,  
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,  
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:  
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,  
That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.   

142  
Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,  
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,  
O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,  
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,  
Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,  
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,  
And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,  
Robbed others beds revenues of their rents.  
Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those,  
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,  
Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,  
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.  
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,  
By self example may'st thou be denied.   

143  
Lo as a careful housewife runs to catch,  
One of her feathered creatures broke away.  
Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch  
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:  
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,  
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bend,  
To follow that which flies before her face:  
Not prising her poor infant's discontent;  
So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,  
Whilst I thy babe chase thee a far behind,  
But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:  
And play the mother's part kiss me, be kind.  
So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,  
If thou turn back and my loud crying still.   

144  
TWo loves I have of comfort and despair,  
Which like two spirits do sugiest me still,  
The better angel is a man right fair:  
The worse spirit a woman coloured il.  
To win me soon to hell my female evil,  
Tempteth my better angel from my sight,  
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:  
Wooing his purity with her fowl pride.  
And whether that my angel be turned find,  
Suspect I may yet not directly tell,  
But being both from me both to each friend,  
I guess one angel in an others hell.  
Yet this shall I near know but live in doubt,  
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.   

145  
THose lips that loves own hand did make,  
Breathed forth the sound that said I hate,  
To me that languished for her sake:  
But when she saw my woeful state,  
Strait in her heart did mercy come,  
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,  
Was used in giving gentle doom:  
And taught it thus a new to greet:  
I hate she altered with an end,  
That followed it as gentle day,  
Doth follow night who like a fiend  
From heaven to hell is flown away.  
I hate, from hate away she threw,  
And saved my life saying not you.   

146  
Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth,  
My sinful earth these rebel powers that thee array.  
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth  
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?  
Why so large cost having so short a lease,  
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?  
Shall worms inheritors of this excess,  
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?  
Then soul live thou upon thy servants loss,  
And let that pine to aggravat thy store;  
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross:  
Within be fed, without be rich no more,  
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men.  
And death once dead, there's no more dying then.   

147  
MY love is as a fever longing still,  
For that which longer nurseth the disease,  
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,  
Th'uncertain sickly appetite to please:  
My reason the Physician to my love,  
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept  
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,  
Desire is death, which Physic did except.  
Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,  
And frantic mad with evermore unrest,  
My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,  
At random from the truth vainly expressed.  
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,  
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.   

148  
O Me! what eyes hath love put in my head,  
Which have no correspondence with true sight.  
Or if they have, where is my judgement fled,  
That censures falsely what they see aright?  
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,  
What means the world to say it is not so?  
If it be not, than love doth well denote,  
loves eye is not so true as all men's: no,  
How can it? O how can loves eye be true,  
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?  
No marvel then though I mistake my view,  
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.  
O cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind,  
Lest eyes well seeing thy foul faults should find.   

149  
CAnst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,  
When I against myself with thee partake:  
Do I not think on thee when I forgot  
Am of myself, all tyrant for thy sake?  
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,  
On whom froun'st thou that I do faun upon,  
Nay if thou lowrst on me do I not spend  
Revenge upon myself with present moan?  
What merit do I in myself respect,  
That is so proud thy service to despise,  
When all my best doth worship thy defect,  
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes.  
But love hate on for now I know thy mind,  
Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.   

150  
OH from what power hast thou this powerful might,  
With insufficiency my heart to sway,  
To make me give the lie to my true sight,  
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?  
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,  
That in the very refuse of thy deeds,  
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,  
That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?  
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,  
The more I hear and see just cause of hate,  
Oh though I love what others do abhor,  
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.  
If thy unworthiness raised love in me,  
More worthy I to be beloved of thee.   

151  
Love is too young to know what conscience is,  
Yet who knows not conscience is borne of love,  
Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,  
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.  
For thou betraying me, I do betray  
My nobler part to my gross body's treason,  
My soul doth tell my body that he may,  
Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,  
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,  
As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,  
He is contented thy poor drudge to be  
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.  
No want of conscience hold it that I call,  
Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.   

152  
IN loving thee thou knowst I am forsworn,  
But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,  
In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,  
In vowing new hate after new love bearing:  
But why of two oaths breach do I accuse thee,  
When I break twenty: I am perjured most,  
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:  
And all my honest faith in thee is lost  
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:  
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,  
And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,  
Or made them swear against the thing they see.  
For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured eye,  
To swear against the truth so foul a lie.   

153  
CVpid laid by his brand and fell a sleep,  
A maid of Dyans this advantage found,  
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep  
In a could vallie-fountaine of that ground:  
Which borrowed from this holy fire of love,  
A dateless lively heat still to endure,  
And grew a seething bath which yet men prove,  
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure:  
But at my mistress eye loves brand new fired,  
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast,  
I sick withal the help of bath desired,  
And thither hied a sad distempered guest.  
But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,  
Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress eye.   

154  
THe little Love-god lying once a sleep,  
Laid by his side his heart inflaming brand,  
Whilst many Nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,  
Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,  
The fairest votary took up that fire,  
Which many Legions of true hearts had warmed,  
And so the General of hot desire,  
Was sleeping by a Virgin hand disarmed.  
This brand she quenched in a cool Well by,  
Which from loves fire took heat perpetual,  
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,  
For men diseased, but I my Mistress thrall,  
Came there for cure and this by that I prove,  
loves fire heats water, water cools not love.  
FINIS.   

A lovers complaint.  BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 

FRom off a hill whose concave womb reworded,  
A plaintfull story from a sistring vale  
My spirits t'attend this double voice accorded,  
And down I laid to list the sad tuned tale,  
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale  
Tearing of papers breaking rings a twain,  
Storming her world with sorrows, wind and rain.   

Upon her head a plattid hive of straw,  
Which fortified her visage from the Sun,  
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw  
The carcase of a beauty spent and done,  
Time had not sithed all that youth begun,  
Nor youth all quit, but spite of heavens fell rage,  
Some beauty peeped, through lettuce of seared age.   

Oft did she heave her Napkin to her eyen,  
Which on it had conceited characters:  
Laundring the silken figures in the brine,  
That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears,  
And often reading what contents it bears:  
As often shrieking undistinguished woe,  
In clamours of all size both high and low.   

Sometimes her leveled eyes their carriage ride,  
As they did battery to the spheres intent:  
Sometime diverted their poor balls are tie,  
To th'orbed earth; sometimes they do extend,  
Their view right on, anon their gases lend,  
To every place at once and no where fixed.  
The mind and sight distractedly commxit.   

Her hair nor loose nor tied in formal plat,  
Proclaimed in her a careless hand of pride;  
For some untucked descended her showed hat,  
Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside,  
Some in her threeden fillet still did bide,  
And true to bondage would not break from thence,  
Though slackly braided in loose negligence.   

A thousand favours from a maund she drew,  
Of amber crystal and of bedded jet,  
Which one by one she in a river threw,  
Upon whose weeping margin she was set,  
Like usury applying wet to wet,  
Or monarchs hands that lets not bounty fall,  
Where want cries some; but where excess begs all.   

Of folded schedulls had she many a one,  
Which she perused, sighed, tore and gave the flood,  
Cracked many a ring of Posied gold and bone,  
Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud,  
Found yet more letters sadly penned in blood,  
With sleided silk, feat and affectedly  
Enswathed and sealed to curious secrecy.   

These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes,  
And often kissed, and often gave to tear,  
Cried O false blood thou register of lies,  
What unapproved witness dost thou bear!  
Ink would have seemed more black and damned hear▪  
This said in top of rage the lines she rends,  
Big discontent, so breaking their contents.   

A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh,  
Sometime a blusterer that the ruffle knew  
Of Court of City, and had let go by  
The swiftest hours observed as they flew,  
Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew:  
And privileged by age desires to know  
In brief the grounds and motives of her wo.   

So slides he down upon his greyned bat;  
And comely distant sits he by her side,  
When he again desires her, being sat,  
Her grievance with his hearing to divide:  
If that from him there may be aught applied  
Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage  
'tis promised in the charity of age.   

Father she says, though in me you behold  
The injury of many a blasting hour;  
Let it not tell your judgement I am old,  
Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power;  
I might as yet have been a spreading flower  
Fresh to myself, if I had self applied  
Love to myself, and to no Love beside.   

But woe is me, too early I atttended  
A youthful suit it was to gain my grace;  
O one by natures outwards so commended,  
That maiden's eyes stuck over all his face,  
Love lacked a dwelling and made him her place.  
And when in his fair parts she did abide,  
She was new lodged and newly Deified.   

His browny locks did hang in crooked curls,  
And every light occasion of the wind  
Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls,  
What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find,  
Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind:  
For on his visage was in little drawn,  
What largeness thinks in paradise was sawn.   

Small show of man was yet upon his chin,  
His phoenix down began but to appear  
Like unshorn velvet, on that termlesse skin  
Whose bare out-braged the web it seemed to were.  
Yet showed his visage by that cost more dear,  
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt  
If best were as it was, or best without.   

His qualities were beauteous as his form,  
For maiden tongued he was and thereof free;  
Yet if men moved him, was he such a storm  
As oft twixt May and April is to see,  
When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.  
His rudeness so with his authorized youth,  
Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.   

Well could he ride, and often men would say  
That horse his metal from his rider takes  
Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,  
What rounds, what bounds, what course what stop he makes  
And controversy hence a question takes,  
Whether the horse by him became his deed,  
Or he his mannad'g, byth' well doing Steed.   

But quickly on this side the verdict went,  
His real habitude gave life and grace  
To appertaining and to ornament,  
Accomplished in himself not in his case:  
All aids themselves made fairer by their place,  
Can for additions, yet their purposed trim  
Peec'd not his grace but were all graced by him.   

So on the tip of his subduing tongue  
All kind of arguments and question deep,  
All replication prompt, and reason strong  
For his advantage still did wake and sleep,  
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep▪  
He had the dialect and different skill,  
Catching all passions in his craft of will.   

That he did in the general bosom reign  
Of young, of old, and sexes both enchanted,  
To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain  
In personal duty, following where he haunted,  
Consent's bewitched, ere he desire have granted,  
And dialogued for him what he would say,  
Asked their own wills and made their wills obey.   

Many there were that did his picture get  
To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind,  
Like fools that in th' imagination set  
The goodly objects which abroad they find  
Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assigned,  
And labouring in more pleasures to bestow them,  
Then the true gouty Landlord which doth owe them.   

So many have that never touched his hand  
Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart:  
My woeful self that did in freedom stand,  
And was my own fee simple (not in part)  
What with his art in youth and youth in art  
Threw my affections in his charmed power,  
Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.   

Yet did I not as some my equals did  
Demand of him, nor being desired yielded.  
Finding myself in honour so forbid,  
With safest distance I mine honour sheelded,  
Experience for me many bulwarks builded  
Of proofs new bleeding which remained the foil  
Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.   

But ah who ever shunned by precedent,  
The destined ill she must herself assay,  
Or forced examples 'gainst her own content  
To put the bypassed perils in her way?  
Counsel may stop a while what will not stay:  
For when we rage, advise is often seen  
By blunting us to make our wits more keen.   

Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,  
That we must curb it upon others proof;  
To be forbade the sweets that seems so good,  
For fear of harms that preach in our behoof;  
O appetite from judgement stand aloof!  
The one a palate hath that needs will taste,  
Though reason weep and cry it is thy last.   

For further I could say this man's untrue,  
And knew the patterns of his soul beguiling,  
Herd where his plants in others Orchards grew,  
Saw how deceits were guilded in his smiling,  
Knew vows, were ever brokers to defiling,  
Thought Characters and words merely but art,  
And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.   

And long upon these terms I held my City,  
Till thus he 'gan besiege me: Gentle maid▪  
Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity  
And be not of my holy vows afraid,  
That's to ye sworn to none was ever said,  
For feasts of love I have been called unto  
Till now did near invite nor never vow.   

All my offences that abroad you see  
Are errors of the blood none of the mind:  
Love made them not, with acture they may be,  
Where neither Party is nor true nor kind,  
They sought their shame that so their shame did find,  
And so much less of shame in me remains,  
By how much of me their reproach contains,   

Among the many that mine eyes have seen,  
Not one whose flame my heart so much as warmed,  
Or my affection put to th', smallest teen,  
Or any of my leisures ever Charmed,  
harm have I done to them but near was harmed,  
Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,  
And reigned commanding in his monarchy.   

Look hear what tributes wounded fancies sent me,  
Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood:  
Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me  
Of grief and blushes, aptly understood  
In bloodless white, and the encrimsoned mood,  
Effects of terror and dear modesty,  
Encamped in hearts but fight outwardly.   

And Lo behold these talents of their heir,  
With twisted mettle amorously empleacht  
I have received from many a several fair,  
Their kind acceptance, wepingly beseeched,  
With th'annexion's of fair gems enriched,  
And deep brained sonnets that did amplify  
Each stones dear Nature, worth and quality.   

The Diamond? why 'twas beautiful and hard,  
Whereto his inuised properties did tend,  
The deep green Emerald in whose fresh regard,  
Weak sights their sickly radiance ●o amend.  
The heaven hewed Saphir and the Opal blend  
With objects manifold, each several stone,  
With wit well blazoned smiled or made some moan.   

Lo all these trophies of affections hot,  
Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,  
Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,  
But yield them up where I myself must render:  
That is to you my origin and ender:  
For these of force must your oblations be,  
Since I their Altar, you en patron me.   

Oh then advance (of yours) that phraseles hand,  
Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise,  
Take all these similes to your own command,  
Hollowed with sighs that burning lungs did raise▪  
What me your minister for you obeys  
Works under you, and to your audit comes  
Their distracted parcels, in combined sums.   

Lo this device was sent me from a Nun,  
Or Sister sanctified of holiest note,  
Which late her noble suit in court did shun,  
Whose rarest have made the blossoms dote,  
For she was sought by spirits of richest cote,  
But kept cold distance, and did thence remove,  
To spend her living in eternal love.   

But oh my sweet what labour ist to leave,  
The thing we have not, mastering what not strives,  
Playing the Place which did no form receive,  
Playing patient sports in unconstraind gives,  
She that her fame so to herself contrives,  
The scars of battle scapeth by the flight,  
And makes her absence valiant, not her might.   

Oh pardon me in that my boast is true,  
The accident which brought me to her eye,  
Upon the moment did her force subdue,  
And now she would the caged cloister fly:  
Religious love put out religions eye:  
Not to be tempted would she be enured,  
And now to tempt all liberty procure.   

How mighty then you are. Oh hear me tell,  
The broken bosoms that to me belong,  
Have emptied all their fountains in my well:  
And mine I power your Ocean all among:  
I strong o'er them and you o'er me being strong,  
Must for your victory us all congest,  
As compound love to physic your cold breast.   

My parts had power to charm a sacred Sun,  
Who disciplined I dieted in grace,  
Believed her eyes, when they t' assail begun,  
All vows and consecrations giving place:  
O most potential love, vow, bond, nor space  
In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine  
For thou art all and all things else are thine.   

When thou impressest what are precepts worth  
Of stale example? when thou wilt inflame,  
How coldly those impediments stand forth  
Of wealth of filial fear, law, kindred fame,  
loves arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense, 'gainst shame  
And sweetens in the suffering pangs it bears,  
The Aloes of all forces, shocks and fears.   

Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,  
Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine,  
And supplicant their sighs to you extend  
To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine,  
Lending soft audience, to my sweet design,  
And credent soul, to that strong bonded oath,  
That shall prefer and undertake my troth.   

This said, his watery eyes he did dismount,  
Whose sights till then were leaveld on my face,  
Each cheek a river running from a fount,  
With brinish currant downward flowed a pace:  
Oh how the channel to the stream gave grace!  
Who glazed with Crystal gate the glowing Roses,  
That flame through water which their hue encloses,   

Oh father, what a hell of witchcraft lies,  
In the small orb of one particular tear?  
But with the inundation of the eyes:  
What rocky heart to water will not wear?  
What breast so cold that is not warmed hear,  
Or cleft effect, cold modesty hot wrath:  
Both fire from hence, and i'll extincture hath.   

For lo his passion but an art of craft,  
Even there resolved my reason into tears,  
There my white stole of chastity I daft,  
shook off my sober guards, and civil fears,  
Appear to him as he to me appears:  
All melting, though our drops this difference bore,  
His poisoned me, and mine did him restore.   

In him a plenitude of subtle matter,  
Applied to Cautills, all straying forms receives,  
Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,  
Or sounding paleness: and he takes and leaves,  
In either's aptness as it best deceives:  
To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes  
Or to turn white and sound at tragic shows.   

That not a heart which in his level came,  
Could scape the have of his all hurting aim,  
Showing fair Nature is both kind and tame:  
And veiled in them did win whom he would maim,  
Against the thing he sought, he would exclaim,  
When he most burnt in hart-wisht luxury,  
He preached pure maid, and praised cold chastity.   

Thus merely with the garment of a grace,  
The naked and concealed fiend he covered,  
That th'unexperient gave the tempter place,  
Which like a Cherubin above them hoverd,  
Who young and simple would not be so loverd.  
Ay me I fell, and yet do question make,  
What I should do again for such a sake.   

O that infected moisture of his eye,  
O that false fire which in his cheek so glowd:  
O that forced thunder from his heart did fly,  
O that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed,  
O all that borrowed motion seeming owed,  
Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed,  
And new pervert a reconciled Maid.   
FINIS.   


INGENIO PYLIUM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM, TERRA TEGIT, POPULUS MAERET. OLYMPUS HABET,  

Stay, Passenger, why dost thou go so fast?  
Read, if thou canst, whom envious Death has placed  
Within this Monument; Shakespeare, with whom  
Quick Nature died, whose Name doth deck the Tomb  
Far more than Cost, since all that he has Writ  
Leaves living Art, but Page to serve his Wit.   
Ob: Ano. D ni 1616. Aetat. 53. Die 23 Apr