LXXVI 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. LXXVII. 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 may'st thou taste. The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show, Of mouthed graves will give thee memory; Thou by thy dial's shady stealth may'st know Time's thievish progress to eternity. Look, what thy memory cannot contain, So oft have I invoked thee for my muse, Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing, And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, Yet be most proud of that which I compile, Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word 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 thoa thyself dost pay. LXXX. O how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might, To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame! But since your worth (wide, as the ocean is,) The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, My saucy bark, inferior far to his, On your broad main doth wilfully appear. Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, Whilst he upon your soundness deep doth ride; Or, being wreck'd, 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. LXXXI. 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'er-read; 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, e'en in the mouths of men. LXXXII. I grant thou wert not married to my muse, Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue, 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. LXXXIII. I never saw that you did painting need, And therefore have I slept in your report, 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. LXXXIV. 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; That you are you, so dignifies his story, But he that writes of you, if he can tell Let him but copy what in is writ, you Not making worse what nature made so clear, And such a counter-part shall fame his wit, Making his style admired every where, You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse. LXXXV. 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 others write good| And, like unletter'd clerk, still cry Amen Hearing you praised, I say, 'tis so, 'tis true, Then others for the breath of words respect, Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, He, nor that affable familiar ghost I was not sick of any fear from thence. Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking; When thou shalt be disposed to set me light, sworn. With mine own weakness being best acquainted, Doing the vantage, double-vantage me. Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue And haply of our old acquaintance tell. Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now; Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow, Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe; If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, 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. XCI. Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, Thy love is better than high birth to me, And having thee, of all men's pride I boast. But do thy worst to steal thyself away, Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, Happy to have thy love, happy to die! So shall I live, supposing thon art true, For there can live no hatred in thine eye, How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow, XCIV. 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; 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 its edge. XCVI. 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 makest faults graces that to thee resort. As on the fingers of a throned queen The basest jewel will be well esteem'd; So are those errors that in thee are seen, To truths translated, and for true things deem'd How many lambs might the stern wolf betray, If like a lamb he could his looks translate; How many gazers might'st thou lead away, If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state! But do not so; I love thee in such sort, As thou being mine, mine is thy good report. XCVII. How like a winter hath my absence been From thee the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December's bareness every where! And yet this time removed was summer's time! The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease: Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me But hope of orphans, and unfather'd 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. XCVIII. XCIX. 1 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 And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath; Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long And make Time's spoils despised every where. Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life; So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife. CI. Ở truant Muse, what shall be thy amends, For thy neglect of truth in beauty did? Both truth and beauty on my love depends; So dost thou too, and therein dignify'd. Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say, Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd, Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay: But best is best, if never intermix'd ; Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb? Excuse not silence so; for it 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. CII. My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear: That love is merchandised, whose rich esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish every where. Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays; And stops his pipe in growth of riper days: As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, 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 sometimes hold my tongue, Because I would not dull you with my song. CIII. 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 over-grows my blunt invention quite, Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace. 72 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. CIV. 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 turn'd, In process of the seasons have I seen; Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah! yet doth beanty, 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, CV. Let not my love be call'd Idolatry, Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument, 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. CVI. When in the chronicle of wasted time So all their praises are but prophecies CVII. 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 While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes, CVIII. What's in the brain that ink may character, Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit? What's new to speak, what new to register, I must each day say o'er the very same; So that eternal love in love's fresh case But makes antiquity for aye his page; CIX. O never say, that I was false of heart, Never believe, though in my nature reign'd To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;" CX. Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view, Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new. Most true it is, that I have look'd 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, save 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, E'en to thy pure and most most loving breast. CXI. 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 renew'd; Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink Potions of eysell, 'gainst my strong infection; No bitterness that I will bitter think, Nor double penance to correct correction, Your love and pity doth the impression fill You are my all-the-world, and I must strive Mark how with my neglect I do dispense: Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind; For it no form delivers to the heart Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch; For if it see the rudest or gentlest sight, The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature. My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue. CXIV. Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery, To make of monsters and things indigest, As fast as objects to his beams assemble? .O'tis the first; 'tis flattery in my seeing, CXV. Those lines that I before have writ, do lie, Crowning the present, doubting of the rest, To give full growth to that which still doth grow? That I have frequent been with unknown minds, But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate: Like as, to make our appetites more keen, E'en so, being full of your ne'er cloying sweet What potions have I drunk of Syren tears, What wretched errors hath my heart committed, Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. That you were once unkind, befriends me now, For if you were by my unkindness shaken, O that our night of woe might have remember'd The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits! 'Tis better to be vile, than vile esteem'd, For why should others' false adulterate eyes At my abuses, reckon up their own; I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel; Unless this general evil they maintain, |