shakespeare.txt

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


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


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


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


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


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


Lo, in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight
Serving with looks his sacred majesty
And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill
Resembling strong youth in his middle age
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still
Attending on his golden pilgrimage
But when from highmost pitch with weary car
Like feeble age he reeleth from the day
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract and look another way
  So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon
  Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son


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


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


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


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


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


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


Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck
And yet methinks I have astronomy
But not to tell of good or evil luck
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell
Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert
  Or else of thee this I prognosticate
  Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date


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


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


Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled with your most high deserts
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces
The age to come would say "This poet lies
Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces
So should my papers, yellowed with their age
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue
And your true rights be termed a poet's rage
And stretched meter of an antique song
  But were some child of yours alive that time
  You should live twice--in it and in my rhyme


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


Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws
And make the Earth devour her own sweet brood
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time
To the wide world and all her fading sweets
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men
  Yet do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong
  My love shall in my verse ever live young


A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth
A man in hue all hues in his controlling
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth
And for a woman wert thou first created
Till Nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting
And by addition me of thee defeated
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing
  But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure
  Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure


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


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


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


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


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


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


Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind when body's work's expired
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide
Looking on darkness which the blind do see
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view
Which like a jewel hung in ghastly night
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new
  Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind
  For thee and for myself no quiet find


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


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


When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night
And weep afresh love's long since canceled woe
And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan
Which I new pay as if not paid before
  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend
  All losses are restored and sorrows end


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


If thou survive my well-contented day
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover
And shalt by fortune once more resurvey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover
Compare them with the bett'ring of the time
And though they be outstripped by every pen
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme
Exceeded by the height of happier men
O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought
Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age
A dearer birth than this his love had brought
To march in ranks of better equipage
  But since he died and poets better prove
  Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
How to divide the conquest of thy sight
Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie
A closet never pierced with crystal eyes
But the defendant doth that plea deny
And says in him thy fair appearance lies
To 'cide this title is impaneled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eyes' moiety and the dear heart's part
  As thus: mine eyes' due is thy outward part
  And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart


Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took
And each doth good turns now unto the other
When that mine eye is famished for a look
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast
And to the painted banquet bids my heart
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part
So, either by thy picture or my love
Thyself away are present still with me
For thou no farther than my thoughts canst move
And I am still with them, and they with thee
  Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
  Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight


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


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


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


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


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


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


O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odor which doth in it live
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses
But, for their virtue only is their show
They live unwooed and unrespected fade
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made
  And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth
  When that shall vade, by verse distils your truth


Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time
When wasteful war shall statues overturn
And broils root out the work of masonry
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory
Gainst death and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom
  So, till the judgment that yourself arise
  You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes


Sweet love, renew thy force. Be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite
Which but today by feeding is allayed
Tomorrow sharpened in his former might
So, love, be thou. Although today thou fill
Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness
Tomorrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness
Let this sad int'rim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore where two contracted new
Come daily to the banks, that, when they see
Return of love, more blessed may be the view
  Or call it winter, which being full of care
  Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare


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


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


If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled
Which, laboring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child
O, that record could with a backward look
Even of five hundred courses of the sun
Show me your image in some antique book
Since mind at first in character was done
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame
Whether we are mended, or whe'er better they
Or whether revolution be the same
  O, sure I am the wits of former days
  To subjects worse have given admiring praise


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


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


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


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


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


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


Tired with all these, for restful death I cry
As, to behold desert a beggar born
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity
And purest faith unhappily forsworn
And gilded honor shamefully misplaced
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill
And simple truth miscalled simplicity
And captive good attending captain ill
  Tired with all these, from these would I be gone
  Save that, to die, I leave my love alone


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


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


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


That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair
The ornament of beauty is suspect
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air
So thou be good, slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater, being wooed of time
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love
And thou present'st a pure unstained prime
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days
Either not assailed, or victor being charged
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise
To tie up envy, evermore enlarged
  If some suspect of ill masked not thy show
  Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe


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


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


That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west
Which by and by black night doth take away
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourished by
  This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong
  To love that well which thou must leave ere long


But be contented when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away
My life hath in this line some interest
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee
The earth can have but earth, which is his due
My spirit is thine, the better part of me
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life
The prey of worms, my body being dead
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife
Too base of thee to be remembered
  The worth of that is that which it contains
  And that is this, and this with thee remains


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


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


Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste
The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear
And of this book this learning mayst thou taste
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory
Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know
Time's thievish progress to eternity
Look what thy memory cannot contain
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind
  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look
  Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still
While comments of your praise, richly compiled
Reserve their character with golden quill
And precious phrase by all the muses filed
I think good thoughts whilst other write good words
And like unlettered clerk still cry amen
To every hymn that able spirit affords
In polished form of well-refined pen
Hearing you praised, I say "'Tis so, 'tis true
And to the most of praise add something more
But that is in my thought, whose love to you
Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before
  Then others for the breath of words respect
  Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect


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


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


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


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


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


Some glory in their birth, some in their skill
Some in their wealth, some in their body's force
Some in their garments, though newfangled ill
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse
And every humor hath his adjunct pleasure
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest
But these particulars are not my measure
All these I better in one general best
Thy love is better than high birth to me
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost
Of more delight than hawks or horses be
And having thee, of all men's pride I boast
  Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take
  All this away, and me most wretched make


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


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


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


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


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


How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen
What old December's bareness everywhere
And yet this time removed was summer's time
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime
Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease
Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
But hope of orphans and unfathered fruit
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee
And thou away, the very birds are mute
  Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
  That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near


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


The forward violet thus did I chide
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed
The lily I condemned for thy hand
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand
One blushing shame, another white despair
A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both
And to his robb'ry had annexed thy breath
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker ate him up to death
  More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
  But sweet or color it had stol'n from thee


Where art thou, muse, that thou forget'st so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song
Dark'ning thy power to lend base subjects light
Return, forgetful muse, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time so idly spent
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument
Rise, resty muse; my love's sweet face survey
If Time have any wrinkle graven there
If any, be a satire to decay
And make Time's spoils despised everywhere
  Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life
  So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife


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


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


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


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


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


When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring
And, for they looked but with divining eyes
They had not skill enough your worth to sing
  For we, which now behold these present days
  Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise


Not mine own fears nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come
Can yet the lease of my true love control
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured
And the sad augurs mock their own presage
Incertainties now crown themselves assured
And peace proclaims olives of endless age
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes
  And thou in this shalt find thy monument
  When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent


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


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


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


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


Your love and pity doth th' impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow
For what care I who calls me well or ill
So you o'ergreen my bad, my good allow
You are my all the world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue
None else to me, nor I to none alive
That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others' voices that my adder's sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense
  You are so strongly in my purpose bred
  That all the world besides methinks are dead


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


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


Those lines that I before have writ do lie
Even those that said I could not love you dearer
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer
But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents
Divert strong minds to th' course of alt'ring things
Alas, why, fearing of time's tyranny
Might I not then say "Now I love you best
When I was certain o'er incertainty
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest
  Love is a babe. Then might I not say so
  To give full growth to that which still doth grow


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle hour
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lover's withering as thy sweet self grow'st
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack
As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May Time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure
Her audit, though delayed, answered must be
And her quietus is to render thee


In the old age, black was not counted fair
Or, if it were, it bore not beauty's name
But now is black beauty's successive heir
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame
For since each hand hath put on nature's power
Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack
Sland'ring creation with a false esteem
  Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe
  That every tongue says beauty should look so


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


Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and, till action, lust
Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad
Mad in pursuit and in possession so
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme
A bliss in proof and proved a very woe
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream
  All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell


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


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


Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain
Have put on black, and loving mourners be
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the gray cheeks of the east
Nor that full star that ushers in the even
Doth half that glory to the sober west
As those two mourning eyes become thy face
O, let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace
And suit thy pity like in every part
  Then will I swear beauty herself is black
  And all they foul that thy complexion lack


Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me
Is 't not enough to torture me alone
But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be
Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken
And my next self thou harder hast engrossed
Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken
A torment thrice threefold thus to be crossed
Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward
But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail
Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard
Thou canst not then use rigor in my jail
  And yet thou wilt, for I, being pent in thee
  Perforce am thine, and all that is in me


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Two loves I have, of comfort and despair
Which like two spirits do suggest me still
The better angel is a man right fair
The worser spirit a woman colored ill
To win me soon to hell my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil
Wooing his purity with her foul pride
And whether that my angel be turned fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell
But being both from me, both to each friend
I guess one angel in another's hell
  Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt
  Till my bad angel fire my good one out


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


The little love-god, lying once asleep
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed
And so the general of hot desire
Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed
This brand she quenched in a cool well by
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual
Growing a bath and healthful remedy
For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall
  Came there for cure, and this by that I prove
  Love's fire heats water; water cools not love


When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies
That she might think me some untutored youth
Unskillful in the world's false forgeries
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young
Although I know my years be past the best
I, smiling, credit her false-speaking tongue
Outfacing faults in love with love's ill rest
But wherefore says my love that she is young
And wherefore say not I that I am old
O, love's best habit is a soothing tongue
And age in love loves not to have years told
  Therefore I'll lie with love, and love with me
  Since that our faults in love thus smothered be.s


Two loves I have, of comfort and despair
That like two spirits do suggest me still
My better angel is a man right fair
My worser spirit a woman colored ill
To win me soon to hell my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil
Wooing his purity with her fair pride
And whether that my angel be turned fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell
For being both to me, both to each friend
I guess one angel in another's hell
  The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt
  Till my bad angel fire my good one out