Could make me any summer's story tell3,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew 9:

Nor did I wonder at the lilies 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.

7 Yet nor the lays of birds, &c.] So Milton, Par. Lost, book iv.:

"Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
"With charm of earliest birds, -

"But neither breath of morn, when she ascends," &c.

MALONE.

9 Could make me any SUMMER'S STORY tell,] By a summer's story Shakspeare seems to have meant some gay fiction. Thus, his comedy founded on the adventures of the king and queen of the fairies, he calls A Midsummer Night's Dream. On the other hand, in The Winter's Tale he tells us, 66 a sad tale's best for winter." So also, in Cymbeline:

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if it be summer news,

"Smile to it before: if winterly, thou need'st

"But keep that countenance still." MALONE.

9 Or from their proud LAP pluck them where they grew:] So, in King Richard II. :

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Who are the violets now

"That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?"

MALONE.

They were BUT sweet, but figures of delight,] What more could be expected from flowers than that they should be sweet? To gratify the smell is their highest praise. I suspect the compositor caught the word but from a subsequent part of the line, and would read;

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They were, my sweet, but figures of delight." So, in the 109th Sonnet :

"Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all." Malone. The old reading is surely the true one. The poet refuses to enlarge on the beauty of the flowers, declaring that they are only sweet, only delightful, so far as they resemble his friend.

STEEVENS.

Nearly this meaning the lines, after the emendation proposed, will still supply. In the preceding couplet the colour, not the sweetness, of the flowers is mentioned; and in the subsequent line the words drawn and pattern relate only to their external appearMALONE. 5

ance.

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

As with your shadow I with these did play :

XCIX.

The forward violet thus did I chide;

Sweet thief, whence did'st 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 dy'd.
The lily I condemned for thy hand 2,

And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair 2;
A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both,
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death 1.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee.

2 The lily I condemned FOR thy hand,] I condemned the lily for presuming to emulate the whiteness of thy hand. MALONE. 3 ONE blushing shame, another white despair;] The old copy reads:

"Our blushing shame, another white despair." Our was evidently a misprint. MALONE.

All this conceit about the colour of the roses is repeated again. in King Henry VI. Part I.:

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Your cheeks do counterfeit our roses,

"For pale they look with fear.

66 thy cheeks

"Blush for pure shame, to counterfeit our roses."

STEEVENS.

4 A vengeful CANKER EAT him UP to death.] So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"Full soon the canker death eats up that plant." Again, in Venus and Adonis :

This canker, that eats up love's tender spring."

MALONE.

C.

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,
Darkening 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, restive 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 every where.
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life;
So thou prevent'st his scythe 5, and crooked knife.

CI.

O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends,
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd ?
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 out-live a gilded tomb,
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.

Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

5 So thou PREVENT'ST his scythe, &c.] i. e. so by anticipation thou hinderest the destructive effects of his weapons.

STEEVENS.

CII.

My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear:
That love is merchandiz'do, whose rich esteem-

ing

The owner's tongue doth publish every where".
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
And stops his pipe in growth of riper days;
Not that the summer is less pleasant now

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

6 That love is MERCHANDIZ'D,-] This expression may serve to support the old reading of a passage in Macbeth:

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the feast is sold

"That is not often vouch'd," &c.

where Pope would read cold.

MALONE.

7 That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish every where.] So, in Love's Labour's Lost:

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my beauty, though but mean,

"Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:

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Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,

"Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues." C.

8 As Philomel in SUMMER'S FRONT doth SING,] In the begining of summer. So, in Othello:

"The very head and front of my offending
"Hath this extent."

Again, more appositely, in The Winter's Tale :

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no shepherdess, but Flora,

"Peering in April's front."

Again, in Coriolanus:

66

--

one that converses more with the

buttock of the night than the forehead of the morning." We meet with a kindred expression in King Henry IV. Part II. :

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thou art a summer bird,

"Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
"The lifting up of day." MALONE.

But that wild musick burdens every bough',
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight2.
Therefore, like her, I sometime 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-goes my blunt invention quite 3,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well 1?

I Not that the summer is less pleasant now

3

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild musick burdens every bough,] So, in The Merchant of Venice:

"The nightingale, if she should sing by day,

"When every goose is cackling, would be thought
"No better a musician than the wren."

C.

their DEAR delight.] This epithet has been adopted by

"Peace is my dear delight, not Fleury's more."

a face,

MALONE.

That OVER-GOES my blunt invention quite,] So, in Othello :

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a maid,

"One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens."

Again, in The Tempest:

"For thou wilt find she will out-strip all praise,

"And make it halt behind her." STEEVENS.

Again, in The Winter's Tale: "I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it." MALONE.

4 striving to mend,

John

To mar the subject that before was well?] So, in King