s: Staring with his bewildered shining eyes


s: "When I came back, I knew the Master's eyes


s: Were looking into mine.  I looked at His,


s: And there was more in them than I could see.


s: At first I could see nothing but His eyes;


s: Only His eyes.  And they looked into mine --


s: But now she must have more of them or die:


s: "He cannot know that there is worse than death,"


s: Said Lazarus; "and that was what He knew;


s: And that is what it was that I could see


s: This morning in his eyes.  I was afraid,


s: But not as you are.  There is worse than death,


s: For you in dying while you are still here.


s: You would not hear me if I told you more,


s: That you are not to learn by going back.


s: And that is much to know.  Many grow old,


s: And fade, and go away, not knowing how much


s: That is to know.  Mary, the night is coming,


s: And there will soon be darkness all around you.


s: Let us go down where Martha waits for us,


s: And let there be light shining in this house."


s: "Martha, when she came back from here, said only


s: That she heard nothing.  And have you no more


s: For Mary now than you had then for Martha?


s: Is Nothing, Lazarus, all you have for me?


s: Was Nothing all you found where you have been?


s: If that be so, what is there worse than that --


s: Or better -- if that be so?  And why should you,


s: With even our love, go the same dark road over?"


s: "I could not answer that, if that were so,"


s: Said Lazarus, -- "not even if I were God.


s: Why should He care whether I came or stayed,


s: If that were so?  Why should the Master weep --


s: For me, or for the world, -- or save Himself


s: Longer for nothing?  And if that were so,


s: Make Him a fugitive where flight were needless,


s: Had He but held his peace and given his nod


s: Is that what you and Martha mean by Nothing?


s: Is that what you are fearing?  If that be so,


s: There are more weeds than lentils in your garden.


s: And one whose weeds are laughing at his harvest


s: May as well have no garden; for not there


s: Shall he be gleaning the few bits and orts


s: Of life that are to save him.  For my part,


s: That will not always be so dark as this;


s: Though now I see there's yet an evil in me


s: No, I was not afraid -- not even of life.


s: I thought I was . . . I must have time for this;


s: And all the time there is will not be long.


s: This morning in my eyes.  I do not know.


s: Or where the old road leads.  I do not know.


s: His eyes again among the trees and faces --


s: Only His eyes; and they looked into mine --


s: Long into mine -- long, long, as if He knew."


s: From fairest creatures we desire increase,


s: That thereby beauty's rose might never die,


s: But as the riper should by time decease,


s: But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,


s: Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,


s: Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:


s: Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,


s: Within thine own bud buriest thy content,


s: Pity the world, or else this glutton be,


s: To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.


s: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,


s: And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,


s: Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,


s: Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held:


s: Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,


s: Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;


s: To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,


s: Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.


s: How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,


s: If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine


s: Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'


s: This were to be new made when thou art old,


s: And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.


s: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest


s: Now is the time that face should form another;


s: Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,


s: Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.


s: For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb


s: Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee


s: Calls back the lovely April of her prime;


s: So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,


s: Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.


s: Die single and thine image dies with thee.


s: Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend


s: Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,


s: And being frank she lends to those are free:


s: The bounteous largess given thee to give?


s: So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?


s: Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:


s: Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,


s: Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,


s: Those hours, that with gentle work did frame


s: The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,


s: And that unfair which fairly doth excel;


s: To hideous winter, and confounds him there;


s: Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,


s: Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:


s: Then were not summer's distillation left,


s: A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,


s: Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,


s: But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,


s: Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.


s: Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,


s: In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:


s: Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place


s: With beauty's treasure ere it be self-kill'd.


s: Which happies those that pay the willing loan;


s: That's for thy self to breed another thee,


s: Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;


s: Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,


s: If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee:


s: Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,


s: Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair


s: To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.


s: Lo! in the orient when the gracious light


s: Lifts up his burning head, each under eye


s: And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,


s: Resembling strong youth in his middle age,


s: Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,


s: But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,


s: Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,


s: The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are


s: From his low tract, and look another way:


s: Unlook'd, on diest unless thou get a son.


s: Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?


s: Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:


s: Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,


s: Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?


s: If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,


s: They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds


s: In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.


s: Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,


s: Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;


s: Resembling sire and child and happy mother,


s: Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:


s: Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,


s: Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'


s: That thou consum'st thy self in single life?


s: The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;


s: The world will be thy widow and still weep


s: That thou no form of thee hast left behind,


s: By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:


s: Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend


s: Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;


s: But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,


s: And kept unused the user so destroys it.


s: No love toward others in that bosom sits


s: That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.


s: For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,


s: Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many,


s: But that thou none lov'st is most evident:


s: For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate,


s: That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,


s: Which to repair should be thy chief desire.


s: O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:


s: Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love?


s: Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,


s: Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:


s: That beauty still may live in thine or thee.


s: As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st,


s: In one of thine, from that which thou departest;


s: And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,


s: Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest,


s: Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;


s: Without this folly, age, and cold decay:


s: If all were minded so, the times should cease


s: And threescore year would make the world away.


s: Let those whom nature hath not made for store,


s: Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:


s: Look, whom she best endow'd, she gave thee more;


s: Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:


s: She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant thereby,


s: Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.


s: When I do count the clock that tells the time,


s: And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;


s: And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;


s: When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,


s: Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,


s: And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,


s: Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,


s: That thou among the wastes of time must go,


s: Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake


s: And die as fast as they see others grow;


s: And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence


s: Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.


s: O! that you were your self; but, love you are


s: No longer yours, than you your self here live:


s: Against this coming end you should prepare,


s: And your sweet semblance to some other give:


s: So should that beauty which you hold in lease


s: Yourself again, after yourself's decease,


s: When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.


s: Against the stormy gusts of winter's day


s: And barren rage of death's eternal cold?


s: O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,


s: Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;


s: Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;


s: Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,


s: Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,


s: But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,


s: And constant stars in them I read such art


s: As 'Truth and beauty shall together thrive,


s: If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert';


s: 'Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.'


s: Holds in perfection but a little moment,


s: That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows


s: Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;


s: When I perceive that men as plants increase,


s: Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,


s: Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,


s: And wear their brave state out of memory;


s: Then the conceit of this inconstant stay


s: Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,


s: To change your day of youth to sullied night,


s: And all in war with Time for love of you,


s: As he takes from you, I engraft you new.


s: With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?


s: Now stand you on the top of happy hours,


s: With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,


s: Much liker than your painted counterfeit:


s: So should the lines of life that life repair,


s: Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,


s: Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,


s: Can make you live your self in eyes of men.


s: To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,


s: And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.


s: Who will believe my verse in time to come,


s: If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?


s: Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb


s: Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.


s: If I could write the beauty of your eyes,


s: And in fresh numbers number all your graces,


s: The age to come would say 'This poet lies;


s: Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'


s: So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,


s: Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,


s: And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage


s: But were some child of yours alive that time,


s: You should live twice,--in it, and in my rhyme.


s: Thou art more lovely and more temperate:


s: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,


s: And summer's lease hath all too short a date:


s: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,


s: And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,


s: And every fair from fair sometime declines,


s: By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd:


s: Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,


s: Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,


s: When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,


s: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,


s: So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


s: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,


s: And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;


s: Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,


s: And burn the long-liv'd phoenix, in her blood;


s: Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,


s: And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,


s: To the wide world and all her fading sweets;


s: But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:


s: O! carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,


s: Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;


s: Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,


s: My love shall in my verse ever live young.


s: A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,


s: Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;


s: A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted


s: With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:


s: An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,


s: A man in hue all 'hues' in his controlling,


s: Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.


s: And for a woman wert thou first created;


s: Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,


s: By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.


s: But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,


s: Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.


s: Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,


s: And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,


s: With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,


s: With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,


s: That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.


s: O! let me, true in love, but truly write,


s: As any mother's child, though not so bright


s: As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:


s: Let them say more that like of hearsay well;


s: I will not praise that purpose not to sell.


s: My glass shall not persuade me I am old,


s: So long as youth and thou are of one date;


s: But when in thee time's furrows I behold,


s: Then look I death my days should expiate.


s: For all that beauty that doth cover thee,


s: Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:


s: O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary


s: As I, not for myself, but for thee will;


s: Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary


s: As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.


s: Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,


s: Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.


s: Who with his fear is put beside his part,


s: Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,


s: Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;


s: And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,


s: O'ercharg'd with burthen of mine own love's might.


s: Who plead for love, and look for recompense,


s: More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.


s: O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:


s: To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.


s: Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd,


s: And perspective it is best painter's art.


s: For through the painter must you see his skill,


s: To find where your true image pictur'd lies,


s: Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,


s: That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.


s: Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:


s: Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me


s: Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun


s: Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;


s: Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,


s: They draw but what they see, know not the heart.


s: Let those who are in favour with their stars


s: Of public honour and proud titles boast,


s: Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars


s: Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread


s: And in themselves their pride lies buried,


s: And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:


s: Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine


s: May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,


s: But that I hope some good conceit of thine


s: In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it:


s: Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,


s: Points on me graciously with fair aspect,


s: Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;


s: Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.


s: The dear respose for limbs with travel tir'd;


s: To work my mind, when body's work's expired:


s: For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--


s: Looking on darkness which the blind do see:


s: Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,


s: Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.


s: Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,


s: For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.


s: When day's oppression is not eas'd by night,


s: But day by night and night by day oppress'd,


s: And each, though enemies to either's reign,


s: Do in consent shake hands to torture me,


s: How far I toil, still farther off from thee.


s: I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,


s: And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:


s: So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,


s: When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.


s: But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,


s: And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.


s: When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes


s: And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,


s: And look upon myself, and curse my fate,


s: Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,


s: Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,


s: Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,


s: Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,


s: Haply I think on thee,-- and then my state,


s: Like to the lark at break of day arising


s: From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate,;


s: For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings


s: That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


s: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought


s: I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,


s: And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:


s: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,


s: For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,


s: And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,


s: And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:


s: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,


s: But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,


s: All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.


s: And there reigns Love, and all Love's loving parts,


s: And all those friends which I thought buried.


s: Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,


s: As interest of the dead, which now appear


s: But things remov'd that hidden in thee lie!


s: Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,


s: Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,


s: Who all their parts of me to thee did give,


s: And thou--all they--hast all the all of me.


s: When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover


s: And shalt by fortune once more re-survey


s: These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,


s: Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,


s: And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,


s: Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,


s: O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:


s: 'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,


s: A dearer birth than this his love had brought,


s: But since he died and poets better prove,


s: Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.


s: Full many a glorious morning have I seen


s: Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,


s: Kissing with golden face the meadows green,


s: Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;


s: And from the forlorn world his visage hide,


s: Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:


s: Even so my sun one early morn did shine,


s: With all triumphant splendour on my brow;


s: But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,


s: The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.


s: Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;


s: Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.


s: Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,


s: And make me travel forth without my cloak,


s: To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,


s: Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?


s: 'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,


s: To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,


s: For no man well of such a salve can speak,


s: That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:


s: Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;


s: Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:


s: The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief


s: To him that bears the strong offence's cross.


s: Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,


s: And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.


s: No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:


s: Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:


s: Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,


s: And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.


s: All men make faults, and even I in this,


s: Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;


s: For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,--


s: And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:


s: To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.


s: Let me confess that we two must be twain,


s: So shall those blots that do with me remain,


s: In our two loves there is but one respect,


s: Which though it alter not love's sole effect,


s: Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.


s: Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,


s: Nor thou with public kindness honour me,


s: Unless thou take that honour from thy name:


s: But do not so, I love thee in such sort,


s: As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.


s: To see his active child do deeds of youth,


s: So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,


s: Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;


s: For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,


s: I make my love engrafted, to this store:


s: So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd,


s: Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give


s: Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:


s: This wish I have; then ten times happy me!


s: While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse


s: O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me


s: When thou thy self dost give invention light?


s: Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth


s: Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;


s: And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth


s: If my slight muse do please these curious days,


s: The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.


s: O! how thy worth with manners may I sing,


s: When thou art all the better part of me?


s: What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?


s: And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?


s: And our dear love lose name of single one,


s: That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone.


s: O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,


s: Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,


s: To entertain the time with thoughts of love,


s: Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,


s: And that thou teachest how to make one twain,


s: By praising him here who doth hence remain.


s: Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;


s: What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?


s: No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;


s: All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.


s: Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest,


s: I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;


s: But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest


s: By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.


s: Although thou steal thee all my poverty:


s: And yet, love knows it is a greater grief


s: To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.


s: Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,


s: Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.


s: Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,


s: When I am sometime absent from thy heart,


s: Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,


s: For still temptation follows where thou art.


s: Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,


s: Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;


s: Will sourly leave her till he have prevail'd?


s: Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,


s: And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,


s: Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:--


s: Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,


s: That thou hast her it is not all my grief,


s: And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;


s: That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,


s: A loss in love that touches me more nearly.


s: Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her;


s: And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,


s: Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.


s: If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,


s: And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;


s: Both find each other, and I lose both twain,


s: And both for my sake lay on me this cross:


s: But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;


s: Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.


s: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,


s: For all the day they view things unrespected;


s: But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,


s: And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.


s: Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,


s: How would thy shadow's form form happy show


s: To the clear day with thy much clearer light,


s: When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!


s: How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made


s: When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade


s: Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!


s: All days are nights to see till I see thee,


s: And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.


s: If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,


s: Injurious distance should not stop my way;


s: For then despite of space I would be brought,


s: From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.


s: No matter then although my foot did stand


s: Upon the farthest earth remov'd from thee;


s: For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,


s: As soon as think the place where he would be.


s: But, ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,


s: To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,


s: But that so much of earth and water wrought,


s: I must attend, time's leisure with my moan;


s: But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.


s: The other two, slight air, and purging fire


s: The first my thought, the other my desire,


s: These present-absent with swift motion slide.


s: For when these quicker elements are gone


s: My life, being made of four, with two alone


s: Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy;


s: By those swift messengers return'd from thee,


s: Who even but now come back again, assur'd,


s: Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:


s: This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,


s: I send them back again, and straight grow sad.


s: How to divide the conquest of thy sight;


s: Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,


s: My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.


s: My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,--


s: A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes--


s: And says in him thy fair appearance lies.


s: A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;


s: The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part:


s: As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,


s: And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.


s: Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,


s: And each doth good turns now unto the other:


s: When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,


s: Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,


s: With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,


s: And to the painted banquet bids my heart;


s: Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,


s: And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:


s: Thy self away, art present still with me;


s: For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,


s: And I am still with them, and they with thee;


s: Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight


s: Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.


s: Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,


s: From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!


s: Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,


s: Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,


s: Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.


s: Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,


s: From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;


s: And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,


s: For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.


s: Against that time, if ever that time come,


s: When I shall see thee frown on my defects,


s: When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,


s: Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects;


s: Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,


s: And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,


s: When love, converted from the thing it was,


s: Against that time do I ensconce me here,


s: Within the knowledge of mine own desert,


s: And this my hand, against my self uprear,


s: To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:


s: To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,


s: Since why to love I can allege no cause.


s: When what I seek, my weary travel's end,


s: Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,


s: 'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'


s: The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,


s: Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,


s: As if by some instinct the wretch did know


s: His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee:


s: That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,


s: More sharp to me than spurring to his side;


s: For that same groan doth put this in my mind,


s: My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.


s: Thus can my love excuse the slow offence


s: Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:


s: From where thou art why should I haste me thence?


s: O! what excuse will my poor beast then find,


s: Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind,


s: Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;


s: Therefore desire, of perfect'st love being made,


s: Shall neigh--no dull flesh--in his fiery race;


s: But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,--


s: 'Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,


s: Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.'


s: Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,


s: The which he will not every hour survey,


s: For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.


s: Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,


s: Since, seldom coming in that long year set,


s: Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,


s: So is the time that keeps you as my chest,


s: Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,


s: To make some special instant special-blest,


s: Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,


s: Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope.


s: What is your substance, whereof are you made,


s: That millions of strange shadows on you tend?


s: Since every one, hath every one, one shade,


s: And you in Grecian tires are painted new:


s: Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,


s: The one doth shadow of your beauty show,


s: In all external grace you have some part,


s: But you like none, none you, for constant heart.


s: O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem


s: By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.


s: The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem


s: For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.


s: The canker blooms have full as deep a dye


s: Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly


s: When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:


s: But, for their virtue only is their show,


s: They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;


s: Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;


s: Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:


s: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,


s: When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.


s: Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;


s: But you shall shine more bright in these contents


s: When wasteful war shall statues overturn,


s: And broils root out the work of masonry,


s: Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn


s: Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room


s: That wear this world out to the ending doom.


s: So, till the judgment that yourself arise,


s: You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.


s: Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said


s: Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,


s: To-morrow sharpened in his former might:


s: So, love, be thou, although to-day thou fill


s: Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,


s: The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness.


s: Which parts the shore, where two contracted new


s: Come daily to the banks, that when they see


s: Return of love, more blest may be the view;


s: Or call it winter, which being full of care,


s: Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.


s: Being your slave what should I do but tend,


s: Upon the hours, and times of your desire?


s: I have no precious time at all to spend;


s: Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,


s: Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,


s: Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,


s: When you have bid your servant once adieu;


s: Nor dare I question with my jealous thought


s: Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,


s: But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought


s: Save, where you are, how happy you make those.


s: So true a fool is love, that in your will,


s: Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.


s: That god forbid, that made me first your slave,


s: I should in thought control your times of pleasure,


s: Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,


s: Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!


s: And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,


s: Be where you list, your charter is so strong


s: That you yourself may privilage your time


s: I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,


s: Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.


s: If there be nothing new, but that which is


s: Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,


s: Which labouring for invention bear amiss


s: O! that record could with a backward look,


s: Even of five hundred courses of the sun,


s: Show me your image in some antique book,


s: Since mind at first in character was done!


s: That I might see what the old world could say


s: Wh'r we are mended, or wh'r better they,


s: To subjects worse have given admiring praise.


s: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,


s: Each changing place with that which goes before,


s: In sequent toil all forwards do contend.


s: Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,


s: Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,


s: And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.


s: Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth


s: And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,


s: Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,


s: And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:


s: And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.


s: Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.


s: Is it thy will, thy image should keep open


s: Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,


s: While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?


s: Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee


s: To find out shames and idle hours in me,


s: O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:


s: It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:


s: Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,


s: For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,


s: From me far off, with others all too near.


s: Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye


s: Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,


s: No shape so true, no truth of such account;


s: And for myself mine own worth do define,


s: But when my glass shows me myself indeed


s: Beated and chopp'd with tanned antiquity,


s: Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;


s: 'Tis thee,--myself,--that for myself I praise,


s: Painting my age with beauty of thy days.


s: With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn;


s: When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow


s: With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn


s: Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;


s: And all those beauties whereof now he's king


s: Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,


s: Stealing away the treasure of his spring;


s: My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:


s: His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,


s: And they shall live, and he in them still green.


s: When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd


s: The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;


s: When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd,


s: And the firm soil win of the watery main,


s: Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;


s: When I have seen such interchange of state,


s: That Time will come and take my love away.


s: This thought is as a death which cannot choose


s: But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.


s: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,


s: But sad mortality o'ersways their power,


s: How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,


s: Whose action is no stronger than a flower?


s: O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out,


s: Against the wrackful siege of battering days,


s: When rocks impregnable are not so stout,


s: Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?


s: Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?


s: O! none, unless this miracle have might,


s: That in black ink my love may still shine bright.


s: Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,


s: And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,


s: Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,


s: Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.


s: Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,


s: That sin by him advantage should achieve,


s: Why should false painting imitate his cheek,


s: And steel dead seeming of his living hue?


s: Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?


s: Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,


s: Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins?


s: And proud of many, lives upon his gains.


s: O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had


s: In days long since, before these last so bad.


s: Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,


s: When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,


s: The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,


s: Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:


s: In him those holy antique hours are seen,


s: To show false Art what beauty was of yore.


s: Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view


s: Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;


s: All tongues--the voice of souls--give thee that due,


s: Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.


s: Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;


s: But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,


s: In other accents do this praise confound


s: By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.


s: And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;


s: Then--churls--their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,


s: To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:


s: But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,


s: The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.


s: That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect,


s: For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;


s: A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.


s: So thou be good, slander doth but approve


s: Thy worth the greater being woo'd of time;


s: For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,


s: And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.


s: Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days


s: Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd;


s: Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,


s: If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show,


s: Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.


s: Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell


s: Give warning to the world that I am fled


s: From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:


s: Nay, if you read this line, remember not


s: The hand that writ it, for I love you so,


s: That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,


s: If thinking on me then should make you woe.


s: Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;


s: But let your love even with my life decay;


s: Lest the wise world should look into your moan,


s: O! lest the world should task you to recite


s: What merit lived in me, that you should love


s: After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,


s: Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,


s: O! lest your true love may seem false in this


s: That you for love speak well of me untrue,


s: And live no more to shame nor me nor you.


s: For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,


s: And so should you, to love things nothing worth.


s: That time of year thou mayst in me behold


s: When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang


s: Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,


s: Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.


s: In me thou see'st the twilight of such day


s: Which by and by black night doth take away,


s: Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.


s: In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,


s: That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,


s: As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,


s: Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.


s: This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,


s: To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.


s: My life hath in this line some interest,


s: Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.


s: When thou reviewest this, thou dost review


s: The earth can have but earth, which is his due;


s: My spirit is thine, the better part of me:


s: So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,


s: The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,


s: The worth of that is that which it contains,


s: And that is this, and this with thee remains.


s: So are you to my thoughts as food to life,


s: Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;


s: And for the peace of you I hold such strife


s: As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.


s: Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;


s: Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:


s: Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,


s: Save what is had, or must from you be took.


s: To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?


s: Why write I still all one, ever the same,


s: That every word doth almost tell my name,


s: Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?


s: O! know sweet love I always write of you,


s: So all my best is dressing old words new,


s: So is my love still telling what is told.


s: Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,


s: Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;


s: These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,


s: And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.


s: The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show


s: Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;


s: Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know


s: Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find


s: Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,


s: These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,


s: Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.


s: And found such fair assistance in my verse


s: Have added feathers to the learned's wing


s: Yet be most proud of that which I compile,


s: Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:


s: In others' works thou dost but mend the style,


s: And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;


s: But thou art all my art, and dost advance


s: My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;


s: But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,


s: And my sick Muse doth give an other place.


s: I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument


s: He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.


s: He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word


s: From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,


s: And found it in thy cheek: he can afford


s: No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.


s: Then thank him not for that which he doth say,


s: Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.


s: Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,


s: And in the praise thereof spends all his might,


s: To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!


s: But since your worth--wide as the ocean is,--


s: The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,


s: On your broad main doth wilfully appear.


s: Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,


s: Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;


s: Or, being wrack'd, I am a worthless boat,


s: He of tall building, and of goodly pride:


s: The worst was this,--my love was my decay.


s: Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;


s: From hence your memory death cannot take,


s: Although in me each part will be forgotten.


s: Your name from hence immortal life shall have,


s: Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:


s: The earth can yield me but a common grave,


s: When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.


s: Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;


s: And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,


s: When all the breathers of this world are dead;


s: You still shall live,--such virtue hath my pen,--


s: Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.


s: I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,


s: And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook


s: Of their fair subject, blessing every book.


s: Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,


s: Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;


s: Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.


s: And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd,


s: What strained touches rhetoric can lend,


s: In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;


s: And their gross painting might be better us'd


s: Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.


s: And therefore to your fair no painting set;


s: I found, or thought I found, you did exceed


s: And therefore have I slept in your report,


s: That you yourself, being extant, well might show


s: How far a modern quill doth come too short,


s: Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.


s: When others would give life, and bring a tomb.


s: There lives more life in one of your fair eyes


s: Than both your poets can in praise devise.


s: Who is it that says most, which can say more,


s: Than this rich praise,--that you alone, are you?


s: Which should example where your equal grew.


s: That to his subject lends not some small glory;


s: But he that writes of you, if he can tell


s: That you are you, so dignifies his story,


s: Not making worse what nature made so clear,


s: And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,


s: You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,


s: Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.


s: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,


s: While comments of your praise richly compil'd,


s: Reserve their character with golden quill,


s: And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.


s: I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,


s: And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen'


s: Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,'


s: And to the most of praise add something more;


s: But that is in my thought, whose love to you,


s: Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.


s: Then others, for the breath of words respect,


s: Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,


s: Bound for the prize of all too precious you,


s: That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,


s: Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?


s: Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,


s: Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?


s: No, neither he, nor his compeers by night


s: Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,


s: But when your countenance fill'd up his line,


s: Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.


s: Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,


s: And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,


s: The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;


s: For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?


s: And for that riches where is my deserving?


s: The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,


s: And so my patent back again is swerving.


s: Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,


s: Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;


s: So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,


s: Comes home again, on better judgement making.


s: Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,


s: In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.


s: When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,


s: Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight,


s: And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.


s: With mine own weakness, being best acquainted,


s: Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted;


s: That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:


s: For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,


s: That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.


s: Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,


s: Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,


s: Thou canst not love disgrace me half so ill,


s: As I'll myself disgrace; knowing thy will,


s: I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange;


s: Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue


s: Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,


s: Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong,


s: For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,


s: For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.


s: Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;


s: Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,


s: Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,


s: Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow,


s: Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;


s: If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,


s: When other petty griefs have done their spite,


s: At first the very worst of fortune's might;


s: And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,


s: Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so.


s: Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,


s: Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,


s: Some in their garments though new-fangled ill;


s: Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;


s: And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,


s: But these particulars are not my measure,


s: Thy love is better than high birth to me,


s: Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,


s: Of more delight than hawks and horses be;


s: And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:


s: Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take


s: All this away, and me most wretchcd make.


s: And life no longer than thy love will stay,


s: Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,


s: When in the least of them my life hath end.


s: Than that which on thy humour doth depend:


s: Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,


s: Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie.


s: But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?


s: Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.


s: So shall I live, supposing thou art true,


s: May still seem love to me, though alter'd new;


s: Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:


s: For there can live no hatred in thine eye,


s: Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.


s: In many's looks, the false heart's history


s: Is writ in moods, and frowns, and wrinkles strange.


s: That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;


s: Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,


s: Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.


s: How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,


s: If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!


s: They that have power to hurt, and will do none,


s: That do not do the thing they most do show,


s: Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,


s: They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,


s: And husband nature's riches from expense;


s: They are the lords and owners of their faces,


s: Others, but stewards of their excellence.


s: The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,


s: But if that flower with base infection meet,


s: For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;


s: Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.


s: How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame


s: Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,


s: Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!


s: O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.


s: That tongue that tells the story of thy days,


s: Making lascivious comments on thy sport,


s: Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;


s: Which for their habitation chose out thee,


s: Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot


s: And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!


s: Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;


s: The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lose his edge.


s: Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;


s: Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;


s: Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less:


s: Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.


s: So are those errors that in thee are seen


s: To truths translated, and for true things deem'd.


s: How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,


s: If like a lamb he could his looks translate!


s: if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!


s: But do not so; I love thee in such sort,


s: As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.


s: From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!


s: What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!


s: What old December's bareness everywhere!


s: And yet this time removed was summer's time;


s: The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,


s: Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:


s: But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;


s: For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,


s: And, thou away, the very birds are mute:


s: Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,


s: That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.


s: From you have I been absent in the spring,


s: When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,


s: Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,


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


s: Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell


s: Of different flowers in odour and in hue,


s: Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:


s: Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;


s: They were but sweet, but figures of delight,


s: Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.


s: Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away,


s: As with your shadow I with these did play.


s: Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,


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


s: Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells


s: In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd.


s: And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;


s: The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,


s: One blushing shame, another white despair;


s: A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both,


s: And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;


s: But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth


s: More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,


s: But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.


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


s: To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?


s: Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,


s: Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?


s: Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,


s: Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem


s: And gives thy pen both skill and argument.


s: Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,


s: And make time's spoils despised every where.


s: Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,


s: So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.


s: For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?


s: Both truth and beauty on my love depends;


s: So dost thou too, and therein dignified.


s: Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,


s: 'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;


s: Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;


s: Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee


s: Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how


s: To make him seem long hence as he shows now.


s: My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;


s: I love not less, though less the show appear;


s: That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,


s: The owner's tongue doth publish every where.


s: Our love was new, and then but in the spring,


s: When I was wont to greet it with my lays;


s: As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,


s: And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:


s: Not that the summer is less pleasant now


s: Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,


s: But that wild music burthens every bough,


s: And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.


s: Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:


s: Because I would not dull you with my song.


s: Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,


s: That having such a scope to show her pride,


s: The argument, all bare, is of more worth


s: Than when it hath my added praise beside!


s: O! blame me not, if I no more can write!


s: Look in your glass, and there appears a face


s: That over-goes my blunt invention quite,


s: Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.


s: Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,


s: To mar the subject that before was well?


s: Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;


s: And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,


s: Your own glass shows you when you look in it.


s: To me, fair friend, you never can be old,


s: For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,


s: Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,


s: Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,


s: Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,


s: Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,


s: Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.


s: Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd;


s: So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,


s: Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd:


s: For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:


s: Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.


s: To one, of one, still such, and ever so.


s: Still constant in a wondrous excellence;


s: Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd,


s: One thing expressing, leaves out difference.


s: 'Fair, kind, and true,' is all my argument,


s: 'Fair, kind, and true,' varying to other words;


s: And in this change is my invention spent,


s: Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.


s: Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone,


s: Which three till now, never kept seat in one.


s: I see descriptions of the fairest wights,


s: In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,


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


s: Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,


s: I see their antique pen would have express'd


s: And for they looked but with divining eyes,


s: They had not skill enough your worth to sing:


s: For we, which now behold these present days,


s: Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.


s: Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul


s: Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,


s: Can yet the lease of my true love control,


s: The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,


s: And the sad augurs mock their own presage;


s: Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd,


s: And peace proclaims olives of endless age.


s: Now with the drops of this most balmy time,


s: My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,


s: Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rime,


s: While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:


s: And thou in this shalt find thy monument,


s: When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.


s: What's in the brain, that ink may character,


s: Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit?


s: What's new to speak, what now to register,


s: That may express my love, or thy dear merit?


s: Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,


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


s: Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.


s: So that eternal love in love's fresh case,


s: Finding the first conceit of love there bred,


s: Where time and outward form would show it dead.


s: Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify,


s: As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:


s: That is my home of love: if I have rang'd,


s: Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd,


s: So that myself bring water for my stain.


s: Never believe though in my nature reign'd,


s: All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,


s: That it could so preposterously be stain'd,


s: To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;


s: Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.


s: Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,


s: Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,


s: Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth


s: Askance and strangely; but, by all above,


s: These blenches gave my heart another youth,


s: And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.


s: Now all is done, save what shall have no end:


s: Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,


s: Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.


s: O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,


s: Than public means which public manners breeds.


s: Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,


s: To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:


s: Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink,


s: Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;


s: Nor double penance, to correct correction.


s: Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,


s: Even that your pity is enough to cure me.


s: Your love and pity doth the impression fill,


s: Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;


s: For what care I who calls me well or ill,


s: So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?


s: You are my all-the-world, and I must strive


s: To know my shames and praises from your tongue;


s: That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong.


s: Of others' voices, that my adder's sense


s: That all the world besides methinks are dead.


s: Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;


s: Doth part his function and is partly blind,


s: Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch:


s: Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,


s: Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;


s: For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,


s: The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,


s: The mountain or the sea, the day or night:


s: The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.


s: My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.


s: Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,


s: Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?


s: Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,


s: And that your love taught it this alchemy,


s: Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,


s: As fast as objects to his beams assemble?


s: O! 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,


s: And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:


s: Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,


s: That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.


s: Those lines that I before have writ do lie,


s: Even those that said I could not love you dearer:


s: My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.


s: But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents


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


s: Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,


s: Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;


s: Might I not then say, 'Now I love you best,'


s: Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?


s: Love is a babe, then might I not say so,


s: To give full growth to that which still doth grow?


s: Let me not to the marriage of true minds


s: That looks on tempests and is never shaken;


s: Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.


s: Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks


s: Within his bending sickle's compass come;


s: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,


s: But bears it out even to the edge of doom.


s: Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,


s: Wherein I should your great deserts repay,


s: That I have frequent been with unknown minds,


s: And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right;


s: That I have hoisted sail to all the winds


s: Which should transport me farthest from your sight.


s: Book both my wilfulness and errors down,


s: Bring me within the level of your frown,


s: But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate;


s: Since my appeal says I did strive to prove


s: Like as, to make our appetite more keen,


s: With eager compounds we our palate urge;


s: We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;


s: Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,


s: To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;


s: And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness


s: To be diseas'd, ere that there was true needing.


s: The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd,


s: And brought to medicine a healthful state


s: Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd;


s: But thence I learn and find the lesson true,


s: Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.


s: What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,


s: Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,


s: Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,


s: What wretched errors hath my heart committed,


s: Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!


s: How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,


s: In the distraction of this madding fever!


s: That better is, by evil still made better;


s: Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.


s: And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.


s: That you were once unkind befriends me now,


s: And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,


s: Needs must I under my transgression bow,


s: Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.


s: For if you were by my unkindness shaken,


s: As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time;


s: To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime.


s: O! that our night of woe might have remember'd


s: My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,


s: And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd


s: The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!


s: But that your trespass now becomes a fee;


s: Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.


s: 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,


s: When not to be receives reproach of being;


s: And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd


s: Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:


s: For why should others' false adulterate eyes


s: Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,


s: Which in their wills count bad what I think good?


s: I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;


s: By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;


s: All men are bad and in their badness reign.


s: Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain


s: Which shall above that idle rank remain,


s: Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart


s: Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part


s: Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.


s: That poor retention could not so much hold,


s: Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;


s: Therefore to give them from me was I bold,


s: To trust those tables that receive thee more:


s: No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:


s: To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;


s: They are but dressings of a former sight.


s: Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire


s: What thou dost foist upon us that is old;


s: Than think that we before have heard them told.


s: Not wondering at the present nor the past,


s: For thy records and what we see doth lie,


s: Made more or less by thy continual haste.


s: I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.


s: If my dear love were but the child of state,


s: As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,


s: Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.


s: It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls


s: Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:


s: Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,


s: That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.


s: To this I witness call the fools of time,


s: Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.


s: Which proves more short than waste or ruining?


s: Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour


s: Lose all and more by paying too much rent


s: For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,


s: Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?


s: And take thou my oblation, poor but free,


s: Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art,


s: Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul


s: When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control.


s: Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour;


s: Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st


s: Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.


s: If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,


s: As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,


s: She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill


s: May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.


s: Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!


s: She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:


s: Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,


s: In the old age black was not counted fair,


s: Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;


s: But now is black beauty's successive heir,


s: For since each hand hath put on Nature's power,


s: Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face,


s: Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,


s: But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace.


s: Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,


s: Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem


s: At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,


s: Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:


s: Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,


s: That every tongue says beauty should look so.


s: How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,


s: Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds


s: With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st


s: The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,


s: Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,


s: At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!


s: To be so tickled, they would change their state


s: O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,


s: Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.


s: Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.


s: The expense of spirit in a waste of shame


s: Is lust in action: and till action, lust


s: Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,


s: Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;


s: Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;


s: Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme;


s: A bliss in proof,-- and prov'd, a very woe;


s: All this the world well knows; yet none knows well


s: To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.


s: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;


s: Coral is far more red, than her lips red:


s: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;


s: If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.


s: I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,


s: And in some perfumes is there more delight


s: Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.


s: I love to hear her speak, yet well I know


s: That music hath a far more pleasing sound:


s: My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:


s: And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,


s: As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;


s: For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart


s: Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,


s: Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;


s: And to be sure that is not false I swear,


s: A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,


s: Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.


s: In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,


s: And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.


s: Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,


s: Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,


s: Have put on black and loving mourners be,


s: Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,


s: Nor that full star that ushers in the even,


s: As those two mourning eyes become thy face:


s: To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,


s: Then will I swear beauty herself is black,


s: And all they foul that thy complexion lack.


s: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan


s: For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!


s: But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?


s: Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,


s: And my next self thou harder hast engross'd:


s: A torment thrice three-fold thus to be cross'd:


s: Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,


s: But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail;


s: Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard;


s: Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail:


s: And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,


s: Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.


s: So, now I have confess'd that he is thine,


s: Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:


s: But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,


s: He learn'd but surety-like to write for me,


s: Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.


s: The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,


s: Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use,


s: And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;


s: Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:


s: He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.


s: Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'


s: And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus;


s: More than enough am I that vex'd thee still,


s: Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,


s: Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?


s: Shall will in others seem right gracious,


s: And in my will no fair acceptance shine?


s: The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,


s: So thou, being rich in 'Will,' add to thy 'Will'


s: One will of mine, to make thy large will more.


s: Let no unkind 'No' fair beseechers kill;


s: Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'


s: If thy soul check thee that I come so near,


s: Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will',


s: And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;


s: Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.


s: 'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love,


s: Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one.


s: In things of great receipt with ease we prove


s: Though in thy store's account I one must be;


s: For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold


s: That nothing me, a something sweet to thee:


s: Make but my name thy love, and love that still,


s: And then thou lov'st me for my name is 'Will.'


s: Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,


s: That they behold, and see not what they see?


s: They know what beauty is, see where it lies,


s: Yet what the best is take the worst to be.


s: Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,


s: Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,


s: Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?


s: Why should my heart think that a several plot,


s: Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?


s: Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not,


s: In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd,


s: And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.


s: When my love swears that she is made of truth,


s: I do believe her though I know she lies,


s: That she might think me some untutor'd youth,


s: Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.


s: Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,


s: Although she knows my days are past the best,


s: Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:


s: On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:


s: But wherefore says she not she is unjust?


s: O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,


s: And age in love, loves not to have years told:


s: Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,


s: And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.


s: Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue:


s: Use power with power, and slay me not by art,


s: Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,


s: Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:


s: What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might


s: Is more than my o'erpress'd defence can bide?


s: Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows


s: Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;


s: And therefore from my face she turns my foes,


s: That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:


s: Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,


s: Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.


s: My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;


s: Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express


s: If I might teach thee wit, better it were,


s: Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;--


s: As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,


s: No news but health from their physicians know;--


s: For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,


s: And in my madness might speak ill of thee;


s: Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,


s: Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.


s: In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,


s: For they in thee a thousand errors note;


s: But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,


s: Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.


s: Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;


s: Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,


s: Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited


s: Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,


s: Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,


s: Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:


s: Only my plague thus far I count my gain,


s: That she that makes me sin awards me pain.


s: Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,


s: Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:


s: O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,


s: And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;


s: Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,


s: That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments


s: And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,


s: Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.


s: Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those


s: Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:


s: Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,


s: If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,


s: Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch


s: One of her feather'd creatures broke away,


s: Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch


s: In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;


s: Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,


s: Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent


s: To follow that which flies before her face,


s: Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;


s: So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,


s: Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;


s: But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,


s: And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;


s: So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'


s: If thou turn back and my loud crying still.


s: Two loves I have of comfort and despair,


s: Which like two spirits do suggest me still:


s: And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,


s: And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend,


s: But being both from me, both to each friend,


s: Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,


s: Those lips that Love's own hand did make,


s: Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',


s: Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,


s: My sinful earth these rebel powers array,


s: Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,


s: Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?


s: Why so large cost, having so short a lease,


s: Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?


s: Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?


s: Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,


s: And let that pine to aggravate thy store;


s: Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;


s: So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,


s: And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.


s: For that which longer nurseth the disease;


s: Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,


s: The uncertain sickly appetite to please.


s: Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,


s: Hath left me, and I desperate now approve


s: Desire is death, which physic did except.


s: Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,


s: My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,


s: At random from the truth vainly express'd;


s: For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,


s: Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.


s: O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,


s: Which have no correspondence with true sight;


s: Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,


s: That censures falsely what they see aright?


s: If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,


s: What means the world to say it is not so?


s: If it be not, then love doth well denote


s: Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,


s: How can it? O! how can Love's eye be true,


s: That is so vexed with watching and with tears?


s: No marvel then, though I mistake my view;


s: The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.


s: O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,


s: Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.


s: Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,


s: When I against myself with thee partake?


s: Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake?


s: Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,


s: On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,


s: Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend


s: That is so proud thy service to despise,


s: When all my best doth worship thy defect,


s: But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind,;


s: Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.


s: O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,


s: To make me give the lie to my true sight,


s: And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?


s: Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,


s: There is such strength and warrantise of skill,


s: That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?


s: Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,


s: The more I hear and see just cause of hate?


s: With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:


s: Love is too young to know what conscience is,


s: Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?


s: Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,


s: Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:


s: My nobler part to my gross body's treason;


s: Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,


s: But rising at thy name doth point out thee,


s: As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,


s: To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.


s: No want of conscience hold it that I call


s: Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall.


s: In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,


s: But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;


s: In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,


s: In vowing new hate after new love bearing:


s: But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,


s: When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most;


s: For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,


s: And all my honest faith in thee is lost:


s: For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,


s: Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;


s: And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,


s: Or made them swear against the thing they see;


s: For I have sworn thee fair; more perjur'd I,


s: To swear against the truth so foul a lie.!


s: Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:


s: And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep


s: In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;


s: Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love,


s: A dateless lively heat, still to endure,


s: And grew a seeting bath, which yet men prove


s: Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.


s: But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,


s: The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;


s: I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,


s: And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,


s: But found no cure, the bath for my help lies


s: Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.


s: Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,


s: Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep


s: Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand


s: Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;


s: Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarm'd.


s: This brand she quenched in a cool well by,


s: Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,


s: For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall,


s: Came there for cure and this by that I prove,


s: Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.


s: Where nought is audible so fills the ear?


s: Like twilight's pledge of blessed night to come,


s: She breathes, she moves, inviting flees,


s: Or heart's desire of her, all earth in it.


s: We saw the heavens fling down their rose;


s: Behold than tracks along a startled shore,


s: With brightened edges of dark leaves that feign


s: An ambush hoped, as heartless night remain.


s: More closely, warmly:  hither, hither! she,


s: The very she called forth by ripened blood


s: For its next breath of being, murmurs; she,


s: Man's cry, earth's answer, heaven's consent; O she,


s: In radiance clothed, to softness quelled;


s: With a sword's edge of sweetness keen to take


s: Our breath for bliss, our hearts for fulness break.


s: The murmur hushes down, the veil is rent.


s: Man's cry, earth's answer, heaven's consent,


s: The sovereign loveliness of celestial white;


s: In dusk of the underworld's perpetual eve,


s: Is planetary; reddens to shore sea-shell


s: Bends gently where her sunset tresses shower.


s: By guerdon of her brilliance may be seen


s: With eyelids unabashed the passion's Queen.


s: Her natural snares to make her will supreme.


s: Before the leader foot shall dip in stream:


s: Her firm new breasts each pointing its own way


s: A knee half bent to shade its fellow shy,


s: Where innocence, not nature, signals nay.


s: The wooer, and all roseate will she burst:


s: And while commanding blissful sight believe


s: It holds her as a body strained to breast,


s: And bids believe that image, heaving warm,


s: Is lost to float like torch-smoke after flame;


s: The phantom any breeze blows out of form;


s: The direst blow on human heart she deals:


s: Nought true but what insufferably feels.


s: That is as heavenly light to hearing, heard


s: Through shelter leaves, the laughter from her throat,


s: We answer as the midnight's morning's bird.


s: In her delicious laughter part revealed;


s: Yet mother is she more of moans and sighs,


s: For longings unappeased and wounds unhealed.


s: Yet would she bless, it is her task to bless:


s: Yon folded couples, passing under shade,


s: Are her rich harvest; bidden caress, caress,


s: Consume the fruit in bloom; not disobeyed.


s: Wrought on the vacant air from inner fire,


s: The glorious Goddess, and we dared desire.


s: Thereat are shown reproachful eyes, and lips


s: Of upward curl to meanings half obscure;


s: And glancing where a wood-nymph lightly skips


s: She nods:  at once that creature wears her lure.


s: Blush of our being between birth and death:


s: Sob of our ripened blood for its next breath:


s: Her wily semblance nought of her denies;


s: Seems it the Goddess runs, the Goddess hies,


s: The generous Goddess yields.  And she can arm


s: Her dwarfed and twisted with her secret charm;


s: Fully shall they be fed, if they beseech.


s: But scorn she has for them that walk alone;


s: Blanched men, starved women, whom no arts can pleach.


s: The men as chief of criminals she disdains,


s: And holds the reason in perceptive thought.


s: More pitiable, like rivers lacking rains,


s: Kissing cold stones, the women shrink for drought.


s: Those faceless discords, out of nature strayed,


s: In impious singles bear the thorny wreaths:


s: Their lives are where harmonious Pleasure breathes


s: For couples crowned with flowers that burn in dew.


s: Comes there a tremor of night's forest horn


s: A shiver courses through her garden-grounds:


s: Grunt of the tusky boar, the baying hounds,


s: The hunter's shouts, are heard afar, and bring


s: Dead on her heart her crimsoned flower of Spring.


s: Would cast; these vaunting barrenness for best,


s: In veins of gathered strength Life's tide arrest;


s: And these because the roses flood their cheeks,


s: Vow them in nature wise as when Love speaks.


s: With them is war; and well the Goddess knows


s: What undermines the race who mount the rose;


s: How the ripe moment, lodged in slumberous hours,


s: Why weak as are her frailer trailing weeds,


s: The strong when Beauty gleams o'er Nature's needs,


s: And timely guile unguarded finds them lie.


s: At every point of juncture must be proof;


s: Nor look for mercy from the incessant surge


s: Her forces mixed of craft and passion urge


s: For the one whelming wave to spring aloof.


s: Resisting in her godhead nature's truth.


s: No flower their face shall be, but writhen stem;


s: Their youth a frost, their age the dirge for youth.


s: As from grey mounds of ashes in bronze urns.


s: She views her quivering couples unconsoled,


s: Like orchard blossoms, apple, pear and plum,


s: Free of the cloud, beneath the flood of gold.


s: Oldest of earth, earth's youngest till earth's end:


s: Are inmost Love's, Life's reach of Life extend.


s: And the tongue's pudency confides to her,


s: With eyes of embers, breath of incense myrrh,


s: The woman's marrow in some dear youth's name,


s: Divide despair from hope, and sighs from moans.


s: As warm of bosom-earth as she; of the source


s: Being mortal and ill-matched for Love's great force;


s: Like green leaves caught with flames by his impress.


s: And pray they under skies less overcast,


s: That swiftly may her star of eve descend,


s: Her lustrous morning star fly not too fast,


s: To lengthen blissful night will she befriend.


s: She hears, approves his words, her garden scans,


s: And him:  the flowers are various, he has choice.


s: Perchance his wound is deep; she listens long;


s: Enjoys what music fills the plaintive song;


s: And marks how he, who would be hawk at poise


s: Above the bird, his plaintive song enjoys.


s: She reads him when his humbled manhood weeps


s: To her invoked:  distraction is implored.


s: Above, with his bright Goddess owned the adored.


s: His tales of her declare she condescends;


s: Can share his fires, not always goads and rends:


s: Moreover, quits a throne, and must enclose


s: A queenlier gem than woman's wayside rose.


s: She bends, he quickens; she breathes low, he springs


s: Enraptured; low she laughs, his woes disperse;


s: Aloud she laughs and sweeps his varied strings.


s: 'Tis taught him how for touch of mournful verse


s: And Beauty's Queen some other way is won.


s: Or it may solve the riddle, that she lends


s: Herself to all, and yields herself to none,


s: Save heavenliest:  though claims by men are raised


s: As Beauty's Queen, should passion head the rout.


s: Be sure the ruddy hue is Love's:  to woo


s: Love's Fountain we must mount the ruddy hue.


s: That is her garden's precept, seen where shines


s: Her blood-flower, and its unsought neighbour pines.


s: Reflecting radiance, even when from her feast


s: Their outstretched arms brown deserts disunite,


s: In love the ruddy hue declares great heart;


s: High confidence in her whose aid is lent


s: Not one of rippled strings and funeral tone.


s: And doth the man pursue a tightened zone,


s: Confirmed to win, with countenance the Sun's.


s: Should pity bless the tremulous voice of woe


s: He lifts for pity, limp his offspring show.


s: For him requiring woman's arts to please


s: No race of giants!  In the woman's veins


s: Persuasion ripely runs, through hers the pains.


s: Her choice of him, should kind occasion nod,


s: In her high Lady's mandate, yields the kiss;


s: And is it needed that Love's daintier brute


s: Be snared as hunter, she will tempt pursuit.


s: In breast, and doth as ready handmaid wait,


s: She plays the winding snake, the shrinking snail,


s: The flying deer, all tricks of evil fame,


s: Hence has the Goddess, Nature's earliest Power,


s: And greatest and most present, with her dower


s: Of the transcendent beauty, gained repute


s: For meditated guile.  She laughs to hear


s: A charge her garden's labyrinths scarce confute,


s: Her garden's histories tell of to all near.


s: Still let the rumour spread, and terror screens


s: To push her conquests by the simplest means.


s: While man abjures not lustihead, nor swerves


s: From earth's good labours, Beauty's Queen he serves.


s: Her spacious garden and her garden's grant


s: She offers in reward for handsome cheer:


s: Choice of the nymphs whose looks will slant


s: Are the blest man's; and whatsoever he gives,


s: From Nature's founts:  she whispers it:  Even I


s: Else little is he lover.  Those he clasps,


s: Intent as tempest, worshipful as prayer, -


s: Else counts he soon among life's wholly tamed.


s: Him whom from utter savage she reclaimed,


s: Half savage must he stay, would he be crowned


s: The lover.  Else, past ripeness, deathward bound,


s: He reasons; and the totterer Earth detests,


s: Love shuns, grim logic screws in grasp, is he.


s: From Joy, between the Queen of Beauty's breasts


s: A sword is driven; for those most glorious twain


s: Present her; armed to bless and to constrain.


s: Of this he perishes; not she, the throned


s: On rocks that spout their springs to the sacred mounts.


s: Earth's chosen Goddess bears:  by none disowned


s: While red blood runs to swell the pulse, she boasts,


s: And Beauty, like her star, descends the sky;


s: Earth's answer, heaven's consent unto man's cry,


s: Till set of man:  the dreamed, the seen;


s: Flushing the world with odorous flowers:


s: Like a flood river whirled at rocky banks,


s: With battle plucking round its ragged flanks;


s: Oft at the heart; yet hard the onward stress


s: Unto more spacious, where move ordered ranks,


s: And rise hushed temples built of shapely stone,


s: The work of hands not pledged to grind or slay.


s: They gave our earth a dress of flesh on bone;


s: A tongue to speak with answering heaven gave they.


s: Then was the gracious birth of man's new day;


s: Divided from the haunted night it shone.


s: That quiet dawn was Reverence; whereof sprang


s: Another sun had risen to clasp his bride:


s: Came Reverence from the Huntress on her heights?


s: From the Persuader came it, in those vales


s: Not far those two great Powers of Nature speed


s: Disciple steps on earth when sole they lead;


s: Nor either points for us the way of flame.


s: His task to hold them both in breast, and yield


s: Their dues to each, and of their war be field.


s: The foes that in repulsion never ceased,


s: Must he, who once has been the goodly beast


s: Offending neither, nor the natural claim


s: Each pressed, denying, for his true man's name.


s: Ah, what a sweat of anguish in that strife


s: To hold them fast conjoined within him still;


s: The forward step met frowns, the backward smiles.


s: For Pleasure witched him her sweet cup to drain;


s: Delicious licence called it Nature's cry;


s: Ascetic rigours crushed the fleshly sigh;


s: A tread on shingle timed his lame advance


s: On godhead visible, on godhead screened;


s: The radiant roseate, the curtained white;


s: Yet sharp his battle strained through day, through night.


s: He drank of fictions, till celestial aid


s: Might seem accorded when he fawned and prayed;


s: To choose for grants the egregious, his elect;


s: The soul of brotherhood whence Reverence drew.


s: Is shown, and she the personal nothing heeds,


s: From brotherhood the one way upward leads.


s: But he who claims in spirit to be flower,


s: Will find them both an air that doth devour.


s: Whereby he smelt his treason, who implored


s: External gifts bestowed but on the sword;


s: Beheld himself, with less and less disguise,


s: Through those blood-cataracts which dimmed his eyes,


s: His army's foe, condemned to strive and fail;


s: Never, though triumphs hailed him, hope to win


s: While still the conflict tore his breast within.


s: To smother light, shut heaven, show earth diseased.


s: And long with him was wrestling ere emerged


s: Of its fierce torment; this way, that way urged;


s: Crouched as a nestling, still its wings untried,


s: The man's mind opened under weight of cloud.


s: Stood day before a vision shooting wide.


s: The traversed wilderness exposed its track.


s: He felt the far advance in looking back;


s: Thence trust in his foot forward through the storm.


s: Under the low-browed tempest's eye of ire,


s: That ere it lightened smote a coward heart,


s: Earth nerved her chastened son to hail athwart


s: All ventures perilous his shrouded Sire;


s: But when the mind, the cherishable mind,


s: The multitude's grave shepherd, took full flight,


s: Himself as mirror raised among his kind,


s: He saw, and first of brotherhood had sight:


s: Knew that his force to fly, his will to see,


s: His heart enlarged beyond its ribbed domain,


s: Which held conjoined the hostile rival twain,


s: Awake to earth, to heaven, and plumb the deep


s: The mastering mind in him, by tempests blown,


s: By traitor inmates baited, upward burned;


s: Perforce of growth, the Master mind discerned,


s: The Great Unseen, nowise the Dark Unknown.


s: In wilderness, where bitter was his need:


s: For light and air, he struck through crimson mire.


s: And viewed an army, once the seeming doomed,


s: His prize from tidal battles lost or won,


s: No prayer, save for strength to keep his ground,


s: Heard of the Highest; never battle's close,


s: The victory complete and victor crowned:


s: Nor solace in defeat, save from that sense


s: Of strength well spent, which is the strength renewed.


s: God being there while he his fight maintains;


s: Throughout his mind the Master Mind being there,


s: Her dust, if with his conscience he plays knave,


s: And bids the Passions on the Pleasures browse:-


s: That mystery to simple springs resolved.


s: Shows Nature's savage riddles kindly solved.


s: In iron laws, though rapturous fair her face.


s: Back to the primal brute shall he retrace


s: His path, doth he permit to force her chains


s: A soft Persuader coursing through his veins,


s: A splendid bloodless knight to gain the skies,


s: A blood-hot son of Earth by all her signs,


s: As peaches, that have caught the sun's uprise


s: And kissed warm gold till noonday, even as vines.


s: Earth fills him with her juices, without fear


s: That she will cast him drunken down the steeps.


s: He sows for bread, and she in spirit reaps:


s: With him enwound, his brave ambition hers:


s: Pricked to race past the pride in giant limb,


s: Proud in her primal sons, when crags they hurled,


s: Were thunder spitting lightnings on the world


s: In daily deeds, and she their evening Muse.


s: This man, this hero, works not to destroy;


s: This godlike--as the rock in ocean stands; -


s: How strength may serve for purity is shown


s: When he himself can scourge to make it clean.


s: Withal his pitch of pride would not disown


s: A sober world that walks the balanced mean


s: Between its tempters, rarely overthrown:


s: And such at times his army's march has been.


s: Near is he to great Nature in the thought


s: That nought save apparition knows the death;


s: To the God-lighted mind of man 'tis nought.


s: She counts not loss a word of any weight;


s: It may befal his passions and his greeds


s: To lose their treasures, like the vein that bleeds,