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, who 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, tho' 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.
UPON THE RECEIPT OF A TABLE-BOOK FROM HIS
MISTRESS.
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain,
Full character'd with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rant 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 raz'd oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.
That poor attention 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 un-father'd;
As subject to time's love or to time's hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.
No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto t' inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretick,
Which works on leases of short number'd hours,
But all alone stands hugely politick,
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 liv'd for crime.
AN INTREATY FOR HER ACCEPTANCE.
Where it ought to be, I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring;
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which prove more short than waste or ruining.
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour,
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
For compound sweet, foregoing simple favour?
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 mix'd with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee.
Hence thou suborn'd informer a true soul,
When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control.
UPON HER PLAYING ON THE VIRGINALS.
How oft when thou thy musick, musick-play'st,
Upon that blessed wood, whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
The witty concord that mine ear confounds;
Do I envy those jacks that nimbly 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 their fingers walk with gentle gate,
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' expence of spirit in a waste of shame,
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjur'd, murd'rous bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
Past reason hated as a swallow'd bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
Made in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,
A bliss in proof, and proud, and very woe;
Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
IN PRAISE OF HER BEAUTY, THOUGH BLACK.
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 slander'd with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profan'd; 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,
Slandering creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.
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, damask, red and white;
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes there is more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
That musick 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, bely'd with false compare.
Thou art tyrannous, so thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel :
For well thou know'st to my dear doating 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,
Altho' I swear it to myself alone.
And to be sure that is not false I swear;
A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,
On one another's neck do witness bare:
Thy black is fairer 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 torments 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 grey 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:
Oh 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 sweetest friend must be?
Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,
And my next self thou harder hast engross'd;
Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken,
A torment thrice three-fold thus to be cross'd.
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 rigour 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 confest that he is thine,
And I myself am mortgag'd to thy will;
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
Thou wilt restore to me, my comfort still.
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous, and he is kind;
He learn'd 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 thy sake,
So him I lose thro' my unkind abuse.
Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me;
He pays the whole, and yet I am 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;
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