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Was us'd in giving gentle doom;
And taught it thus anew to greet:
I hate she alter'd with an end,
That follow'd 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 sav'd my life, saying-not you.

CXLVI.

Poor soul,77 the centre of my sinful earth,
Fool'd by those 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.

"Poor soul, &c.] The two first lines of this sonnet are thus given in the old copy;

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Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth,

My sinful earth these rebel powers that thee array."

The emendation is Malone's.

CXLVII.

My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic mad with evermore unrest;

My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee
bright,

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

CXLVIII.

my

O me! what hath love eyes put in head, Which have no correspondence with true sight? Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, That censures78 falsely what they see aright? If that be fair whereon my false dote, What means the world to say it is not so? If it be not, then love doth well denote Love's eye

eyes

is not so true as all men's: no. How can it? O how can Love's

eye

78 censures] i. e. estimates.

be true.

That is so vex'd 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.

CXLIX.

Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not, When I, against myself, with thee partake ?79 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 low'rst 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.

CL.

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,

79 partake] i. e. take part.

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 should'st not abhor my
If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me,
More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.

CLI.

state;

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,80 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.

CLII.

In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn, But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing; 80 amiss] i. e. fault.

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 perjur'd 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 kind-

ness,

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 perjur'd I,
To swear, against the truth, so foul a lie!

CLIII.

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 borrow'd 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-fir'd,

The boy for trial needs would touch

my

breast;

I sick withal, the help of bath desir'd,
And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,
But found no cure; the bath for my help lies
Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.

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