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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 defac'd,
The rich proud cost of out-worn bury'd age:
When sometimes lofty towers I see down raz'd,
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,
The 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 hungry breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of battering 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 this swift foot back?
Or who his spoil on beauty can forbid ?

O none unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

'Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry ;
As to behold desert a beggar borne,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right protection wrongfully disgrac'd,
And strength by limping sway disabled,

And art made tongue-ty'd by authority,
And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive Good attending captain III:
Tir'd with all these, from these, would I begone,
Save that to die, I leave my love alone.

TRUE ADMIRATION.

What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one, 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 foizon 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 odour 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's only in their show,
They live unmov'd, and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves: sweet roses do not so ;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, by verse distils your truth.

[6] The foizon, or plentiful season; i. e. the autumn is the emblem of your beauty. MALONE.

[7] For has here the signification of because. So, in Othello: "Haply for I am black." MALONE.

THE FORCE OF LOVE.

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,
(Tho' you do any thing) 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 the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure.
O let me suffer (being at your beck)

Th' imprison'd 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, tho' waiting so be hell:
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

THE BEAUTY OF NATURE.

If there be nothing new, but that which is,
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil❜d ?
Which labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child?
O that record could with a backward look,
E'en of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mine 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're mended, or where better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.

21*

VOL. IX.

O! sure I am, the wits of former days

To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

LOVE'S CRUELTY.

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose may never die ;
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender air 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.9
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held :
Then being ask'd 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 deserv'd thy beauty's use,
If thou could'st 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 un-ear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond, will be the tomb

[9] The ancient editors of Shakspeare's works deserve at least the credit of impartiality. If they have occasionally corrupted his noble sentiments, they have likewise depraved his short miserable conceits, as perhaps in this instance. I read,

To eat the world's due be thy grave and thee." STEEVENS.

Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

Thou art my mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime :
So thou thro' windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember not to be ;
Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

YOUTHFUL GLORY.

O that you were yourself! 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
Yourself again, after yourself's decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who let so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour 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 ought predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And constant stars; in them I read such art,1
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself, to store thou would'st convert:
Or else of thee this I prognosticate,

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

When I consider, every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment:
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows,

[1] Read-And (constant stars) in them, &c,

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