SONNET XVIII
　　
　　Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
　　Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
　　Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
　　And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
　　Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 5
　　And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
　　And every fair from fair sometime declines,
　　By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
　　But thy eternal summer shall not fade
　　Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; 10
　　Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
　　When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
　　 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
　　 So long lives this and this gives life to thee. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XIX
　　
　　Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
　　And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
　　Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
　　And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
　　Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, 5
　　And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
　　To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
　　But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
　　O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
　　Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen; 10
　　Him in thy course untainted do allow
　　For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
　　 Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
　　 My love shall in my verse ever live young. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XX
　　
　　A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
　　Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
　　A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
　　With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
　　An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, 5
　　Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
　　A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,
　　Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
　　And for a woman wert thou first created;
　　Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, 10
　　And by addition me of thee defeated,
　　By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
　　 But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
　　 Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXI
　　
　　So is it not with me as with that Muse
　　Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,
　　Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
　　And every fair with his fair doth rehearse
　　Making a couplement of proud compare, 5
　　With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
　　With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare
　　That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
　　O' let me, true in love, but truly write,
　　And then believe me, my love is as fair 10
　　As any mother's child, though not so bright
　　As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:
　　 Let them say more than like of hearsay well;
　　 I will not praise that purpose not to sell. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXII
　　
　　My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
　　So long as youth and thou are of one date;
　　But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
　　Then look I death my days should expiate.
　　For all that beauty that doth cover thee 5
　　Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
　　Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
　　How can I then be elder than thou art?
　　O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
　　As I, not for myself, but for thee will; 10
　　Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
　　As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
　　 Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
　　 Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXIII
　　
　　As an unperfect actor on the stage
　　Who with his fear is put besides his part,
　　Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
　　Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart.
　　So I, for fear of trust, forget to say 5
　　The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
　　And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
　　O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might.
　　O, let my books be then the eloquence
　　And dumb presagers of my speaking breast, 10
　　Who plead for love and look for recompense
　　More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
　　 O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
　　 To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXIV
　　
　　Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
　　Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
　　My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
　　And perspective it is the painter's art.
　　For through the painter must you see his skill, 5
　　To find where your true image pictured lies;
　　Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
　　That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
　　Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
　　Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me 10
　　Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
　　Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
　　 Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;
　　 They draw but what they see, know not the heart. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXV
　　
　　Let those who are in favour with their stars
　　Of public honour and proud titles boast,
　　Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
　　Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
　　Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread 5
　　But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
　　And in themselves their pride lies buried,
　　For at a frown they in their glory die.
　　The painful warrior famoused for fight,
　　After a thousand victories once foil'd, 10
　　Is from the book of honour razed quite,
　　And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:
　　 Then happy I, that love and am beloved
　　 Where I may not remove nor be removed. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXVI
　　
　　Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
　　Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
　　To thee I send this written embassage,
　　To witness duty, not to show my wit:
　　Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine 5
　　May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
　　But that I hope some good conceit of thine
　　In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;
　　Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
　　Points on me graciously with fair aspect 10
　　And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,
　　To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
　　 Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
　　 Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXVII
　　
　　Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
　　The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
　　But then begins a journey in my head,
　　To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
　　For then my thoughts, from far where I abide, 5
　　Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
　　And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
　　Looking on darkness which the blind do see
　　Save that my soul's imaginary sight
　　Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, 10
　　Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
　　Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
　　 Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
　　 For thee and for myself no quiet find. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXVIII
　　
　　How can I then return in happy plight,
　　That am debarr'd the benefit of rest?
　　When day's oppression is not eased by night,
　　But day by night, and night by day, oppress'd?
　　And each, though enemies to either's reign, 5
　　Do in consent shake hands to torture me;
　　The one by toil, the other to complain
　　How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
　　I tell the day, to please them thou art bright
　　And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven: 10
　　So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,
　　When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.
　　 But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer
　　 And night doth nightly make grief's strength seem stronger. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXIX
　　
　　When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
　　I all alone beweep my outcast state
　　And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
　　And look upon myself and curse my fate,
　　Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 5
　　Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
　　Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
　　With what I most enjoy contented least;
　　Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
　　Haply I think on thee, and then my state, 10
　　Like to the lark at break of day arising
　　From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
　　 For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
　　 That then I scorn to change my state with kings. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXX
　　
　　When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
　　I summon up remembrance of things past,
　　I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
　　And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
　　Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, 5
　　For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
　　And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
　　And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
　　Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
　　And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 10
　　The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
　　Which I new pay as if not paid before.
　　 But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
　　 All losses are restored and sorrows end. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXXI
　　
　　Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
　　Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
　　And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,
　　And all those friends which I thought buried.
　　How many a holy and obsequious tear 5
　　Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye
　　As interest of the dead, which now appear
　　But things removed that hidden in thee lie!
　　Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
　　Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, 10
　　Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
　　That due of many now is thine alone:
　　 Their images I loved I view in thee,
　　 And thou, all they, hast all the all of me. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXXII
　　
　　If thou survive my well-contented day,
　　When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
　　And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
　　These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
　　Compare them with the bettering of the time, 5
　　And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
　　Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
　　Exceeded by the height of happier men.
　　O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
　　'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, 10
　　A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
　　To march in ranks of better equipage:
　　 But since he died and poets better prove,
　　 Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.' 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXXIII
　　
　　Full many a glorious morning have I seen
　　Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
　　Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
　　Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
　　Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 5
　　With ugly rack on his celestial face,
　　And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
　　Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
　　Even so my sun one early morn did shine
　　With all triumphant splendor on my brow; 10
　　But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
　　The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
　　 Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
　　 Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXXIV
　　
　　Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
　　And make me travel forth without my cloak,
　　To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
　　Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
　　'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break, 5
　　To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
　　For no man well of such a salve can speak
　　That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:
　　Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
　　Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss: 10
　　The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
　　To him that bears the strong offence's cross.
　　 Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
　　 And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXXV
　　
　　No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
　　Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
　　Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
　　And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
　　All men make faults, and even I in this, 5
　　Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
　　Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
　　Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
　　For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense--
　　Thy adverse party is thy advocate-- 10
　　And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
　　Such civil war is in my love and hate
　　 That I an accessary needs must be
　　 To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXXVI
　　
　　Let me confess that we two must be twain,
　　Although our undivided loves are one:
　　So shall those blots that do with me remain
　　Without thy help by me be borne alone.
　　In our two loves there is but one respect, 5
　　Though in our lives a separable spite,
　　Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
　　Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
　　I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
　　Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame, 10
　　Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
　　Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
　　 But do not so; I love thee in such sort
　　 As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXXVII
　　
　　As a decrepit father takes delight
　　To see his active child do deeds of youth,
　　So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,
　　Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
　　For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, 5
　　Or any of these all, or all, or more,
　　Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,
　　I make my love engrafted to this store:
　　So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
　　Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give 10
　　That I in thy abundance am sufficed
　　And by a part of all thy glory live.
　　 Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee:
　　 This wish I have; then ten times happy me! 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXXVIII
　　
　　How can my Muse want subject to invent,
　　While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse
　　Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
　　For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
　　O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me 5
　　Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
　　For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
　　When thou thyself dost give invention light?
　　Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
　　Than those old nine which rhymers invocate; 10
　　And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
　　Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
　　 If my slight Muse do please these curious days,
　　 The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XXXIX
　　
　　O, how thy worth with manners may I sing,
　　When thou art all the better part of me?
　　What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
　　And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee?
　　Even for this let us divided live, 5
　　And our dear love lose name of single one,
　　That by this separation I may give
　　That due to thee which thou deservest alone.
　　O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove,
　　Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave 10
　　To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
　　Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,
　　 And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
　　 By praising him here who doth hence remain! 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XL
　　
　　Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
　　What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
　　No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
　　All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
　　Then if for my love thou my love receivest, 5
　　I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
　　But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest
　　By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
　　I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
　　Although thou steal thee all my poverty; 10
　　And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief
　　To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.
　　 Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
　　 Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XLI
　　
　　Those petty wrongs that liberty commits,
　　When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
　　Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
　　For still temptation follows where thou art.
　　Gentle thou art and therefore to be won, 5
　　Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;
　　And when a woman woos, what woman's son
　　Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed?
　　Ay me! but yet thou mightest my seat forbear,
　　And chide try beauty and thy straying youth, 10
　　Who lead thee in their riot even there
　　Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth,
　　 Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
　　 Thine, by thy beauty being false to me. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XLII
　　
　　That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
　　And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
　　That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,
　　A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
　　Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye: 5
　　Thou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her;
　　And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
　　Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.
　　If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,
　　And losing her, my friend hath found that loss; 10
　　Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
　　And both for my sake lay on me this cross:
　　 But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;
　　 Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XLIII
　　
　　When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
　　For all the day they view things unrespected;
　　But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
　　And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
　　Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, 5
　　How would thy shadow's form form happy show
　　To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
　　When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
　　How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
　　By looking on thee in the living day, 10
　　When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
　　Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
　　 All days are nights to see till I see thee,
　　 And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XLIV
　　
　　If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
　　Injurious distance should not stop my way;
　　For then despite of space I would be brought,
　　From limits far remote where thou dost stay.
　　No matter then although my foot did stand 5
　　Upon the farthest earth removed from thee;
　　For nimble thought can jump both sea and land
　　As soon as think the place where he would be.
　　But ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,
　　To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone, 10
　　But that so much of earth and water wrought
　　I must attend time's leisure with my moan,
　　 Receiving nought by elements so slow
　　 But heavy tears, badges of either's woe. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XLV
　　
　　The other two, slight air and purging fire,
　　Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
　　The first my thought, the other my desire,
　　These present-absent with swift motion slide.
　　For when these quicker elements are gone 5
　　In tender embassy of love to thee,
　　My life, being made of four, with two alone
　　Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy;
　　Until life's composition be recured
　　By those swift messengers return'd from thee, 10
　　Who even but now come back again, assured
　　Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:
　　 This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,
　　 I send them back again and straight grow sad. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XLVI
　　
　　Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
　　How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
　　Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
　　My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
　　My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie-- 5
　　A closet never pierced with crystal eyes--
　　But the defendant doth that plea deny
　　And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
　　To 'cide this title is impanneled
　　A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart, 10
　　And by their verdict is determined
　　The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part:
　　 As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,
　　 And my heart's right thy inward love of heart. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XLVII
　　
　　Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
　　And each doth good turns now unto the other:
　　When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
　　Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
　　With my love's picture then my eye doth feast 5
　　And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
　　Another time mine eye is my heart's guest
　　And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
　　So, either by thy picture or my love,
　　Thyself away art resent still with me; 10
　　For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
　　And I am still with them and they with thee;
　　 Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
　　 Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XLVIII
　　
　　How careful was I, when I took my way,
　　Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
　　That to my use it might unused stay
　　From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
　　But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are, 5
　　Most worthy of comfort, now my greatest grief,
　　Thou, best of dearest and mine only care,
　　Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
　　Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest,
　　Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art, 10
　　Within the gentle closure of my breast,
　　From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;
　　 And even thence thou wilt be stol'n, I fear,
　　 For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XLIX
　　
　　Against that time, if ever that time come,
　　When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
　　When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
　　Call'd to that audit by advised respects;
　　Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass 5
　　And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,
　　When love, converted from the thing it was,
　　Shall reasons find of settled gravity,--
　　Against that time do I ensconce me here
　　Within the knowledge of mine own desert, 10
　　And this my hand against myself uprear,
　　To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:
　　 To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
　　 Since why to love I can allege no cause. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET L
　　
　　How heavy do I journey on the way,
　　When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
　　Doth teach that ease and that repose to say
　　'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'
　　The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, 5
　　Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
　　As if by some instinct the wretch did know
　　His rider loved not speed, being made from thee:
　　The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
　　That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide; 10
　　Which heavily he answers with a groan,
　　More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
　　 For that same groan doth put this in my mind;
　　 My grief lies onward and my joy behind. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LI
　　
　　Thus can my love excuse the slow offence
　　Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:
　　From where thou art why should I haste me thence?
　　Till I return, of posting is no need.
　　O, what excuse will my poor beast then find, 5
　　When swift extremity can seem but slow?
　　Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind;
　　In winged speed no motion shall I know:
　　Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;
　　Therefore desire of perfect'st love being made, 10
　　Shall neigh--no dull flesh--in his fiery race;
　　But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade;
　　 Since from thee going he went wilful-slow,
　　 Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LII
　　
　　So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
　　Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
　　The which he will not every hour survey,
　　For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
　　Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare, 5
　　Since, seldom coming, in the long year set,
　　Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
　　Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
　　So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
　　Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide, 10
　　To make some special instant special blest,
　　By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.
　　 Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope,
　　 Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to hope. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LIII
　　
　　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 5
　　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 foison of the year;
　　The one doth shadow of your beauty show, 10
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LIV
　　
　　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 5
　　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 only is their show,
　　They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade, 10
　　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, my verse distills your truth. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LV
　　
　　Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
　　Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
　　But you shall shine more bright in these contents
　　Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time.
　　When wasteful war shall statues overturn, 5
　　And broils root out the work of masonry,
　　Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
　　The living record of your memory.
　　'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
　　Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room 10
　　Even in the eyes of all posterity
　　That wear this world out to the ending doom.
　　 So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
　　 You live in this, and dwell in lover's eyes. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LVI
　　
　　Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
　　Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
　　Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,
　　To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might:
　　So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill 5
　　Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness,
　　To-morrow see again, and do not kill
　　The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.
　　Let this sad interim like the ocean be
　　Which parts the shore, where two contracted new 10
　　Come daily to the banks, that, when they see
　　Return of love, more blest may be the view;
　　 Else call it winter, which being full of care
　　 Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LVII
　　
　　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 5
　　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, 10
　　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,
　　 Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LVIII
　　
　　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, 5
　　The imprison'd absence of your liberty;
　　And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each cheque,
　　Without accusing you of injury.
　　Be where you list, your charter is so strong
　　That you yourself may privilege your time 10
　　To what you will; to you it doth belong
　　Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
　　 I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;
　　 Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LIX
　　
　　If there be nothing new, but that which is
　　Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
　　Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
　　The second burden of a former child!
　　O, that record could with a backward look, 5
　　Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
　　Show me your image in some antique book,
　　Since mind at first in character was done!
　　That I might see what the old world could say
　　To this composed wonder of your frame; 10
　　Whether we are mended, or whether better they,
　　Or whether revolution be the same.
　　 O, sure I am, the wits of former days
　　 To subjects worse have given admiring praise. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LX
　　
　　Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
　　So do our minutes hasten to their end;
　　Each changing place with that which goes before,
　　In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
　　Nativity, once in the main of light, 5
　　Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
　　Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,
　　And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
　　Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
　　And delves the parallels in beauty's brow, 10
　　Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
　　And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
　　 And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
　　 Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXI
　　
　　Is it thy will thy image should keep open
　　My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
　　Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
　　While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
　　Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee 5
　　So far from home into my deeds to pry,
　　To find out shames and idle hours in me,
　　The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?
　　O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:
　　It is my love that keeps mine eye awake; 10
　　Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
　　To play the watchman ever for thy sake:
　　 For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
　　 From me far off, with others all too near. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXII
　　
　　Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
　　And all my soul and all my every part;
　　And for this sin there is no remedy,
　　It is so grounded inward in my heart.
　　Methinks no face so gracious is as mine, 5
　　No shape so true, no truth of such account;
　　And for myself mine own worth do define,
　　As I all other in all worths surmount.
　　But when my glass shows me myself indeed,
　　Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity, 10
　　Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
　　Self so self-loving were iniquity.
　　 'Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,
　　 Painting my age with beauty of thy days. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXIII
　　
　　Against my love shall be, as I am now,
　　With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'er-worn;
　　When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow
　　With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
　　Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night, 5
　　And all those beauties whereof now he's king
　　Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight,
　　Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
　　For such a time do I now fortify
　　Against confounding age's cruel knife, 10
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXIV
　　
　　When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
　　The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
　　When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
　　And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
　　When I have seen the hungry ocean gain 5
　　Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
　　And the firm soil win of the watery main,
　　Increasing store with loss and loss with store;
　　When I have seen such interchange of state,
　　Or state itself confounded to decay; 10
　　Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
　　That 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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXV
　　
　　Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
　　But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
　　How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
　　Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
　　O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out 5
　　Against the wreckful 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? 10
　　Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
　　Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
　　 O, none, unless this miracle have might,
　　 That in black ink my love may still shine bright. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXVI
　　
　　Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
　　As, to behold desert a beggar born,
　　And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
　　And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
　　And guilded honour shamefully misplaced, 5
　　And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
　　And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
　　And strength by limping sway disabled,
　　And art made tongue-tied by authority,
　　And folly doctor-like controlling skill, 10
　　And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
　　And captive good attending captain ill:
　　 Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
　　 Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXVII
　　
　　Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,
　　And with his presence grace impiety,
　　That sin by him advantage should achieve
　　And lace itself with his society?
　　Why should false painting imitate his cheek 5
　　And steal dead seeing of his living hue?
　　Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
　　Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
　　Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
　　Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins? 10
　　For she hath no exchequer now but his,
　　And, proud of many, lives upon his gains.
　　 O, him she stores, to show what wealth she had
　　 In days long since, before these last so bad. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXVIII
　　
　　Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
　　When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
　　Before the bastard signs of fair were born,
　　Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
　　Before the golden tresses of the dead, 5
　　The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
　　To live a second life on second head;
　　Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:
　　In him those holy antique hours are seen,
　　Without all ornament, itself and true, 10
　　Making no summer of another's green,
　　Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;
　　 And him as for a map doth Nature store,
　　 To show false Art what beauty was of yore. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXIX
　　
　　Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
　　Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
　　All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
　　Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
　　Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd; 5
　　But those same tongues that give thee so thine own
　　In other accents do this praise confound
　　By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
　　They look into the beauty of thy mind,
　　And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds; 10
　　Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
　　To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
　　 But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
　　 The solve is this, that thou dost common grow. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXX
　　
　　That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
　　For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
　　The ornament of beauty is suspect,
　　A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
　　So thou be good, slander doth but approve 5
　　Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time;
　　For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
　　And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
　　Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days,
　　Either not assail'd or victor being charged; 10
　　Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
　　To tie up envy evermore enlarged:
　　 If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show,
　　 Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXI
　　
　　No longer mourn for me when I am dead
　　Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
　　Give warning to the world that I am fled
　　From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
　　Nay, if you read this line, remember not 5
　　The hand that writ it; for I love you so
　　That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
　　If thinking on me then should make you woe.
　　O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
　　When I perhaps compounded am with clay, 10
　　Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
　　But let your love even with my life decay,
　　 Lest the wise world should look into your moan
　　 And mock you with me after I am gone. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXII
　　
　　O, lest the world should task you to recite
　　What merit lived in me, that you should love
　　After my death, dear love, forget me quite,
　　For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
　　Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, 5
　　To do more for me than mine own desert,
　　And hang more praise upon deceased I
　　Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
　　O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
　　That you for love speak well of me untrue, 10
　　My name be buried where my body is,
　　And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
　　 For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
　　 And so should you, to love things nothing worth. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXIII
　　
　　That time of year thou mayst in me behold
　　When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
　　Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
　　Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
　　In me thou seest the twilight of such day 5
　　As after sunset fadeth in the west,
　　Which by and by black night doth take away,
　　Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
　　In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
　　That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 10
　　As the death-bed whereon it must expire
　　Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
　　 This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
　　 To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXIV
　　
　　But be contented: when that fell arrest
　　Without all bail shall carry me away,
　　My life hath in this line some interest,
　　Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
　　When thou reviewest this, thou dost review 5
　　The very part was consecrate to thee:
　　The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
　　My spirit is thine, the better part of me:
　　So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
　　The prey of worms, my body being dead, 10
　　The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
　　Too base of thee to be remembered.
　　 The worth of that is that which it contains,
　　 And that is this, and this with thee remains. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXV
　　
　　So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
　　Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
　　And for the peace of you I hold such strife
　　As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
　　Now proud as an enjoyer and anon 5
　　Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
　　Now counting best to be with you alone,
　　Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure;
　　Sometime all full with feasting on your sight
　　And by and by clean starved for a look; 10
　　Possessing or pursuing no delight,
　　Save what is had or must from you be took.
　　 Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
　　 Or gluttoning on all, or all away. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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, 5
　　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; 10
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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 mayst thou taste.
　　The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show 5
　　Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
　　Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know
　　Time's thievish progress to eternity.
　　Look, what thy memory can not contain
　　Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find 10
　　Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,
　　To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
　　 These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
　　 Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXVIII
　　
　　So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
　　And found such fair assistance in my verse
　　As every alien pen hath got my use
　　And under thee their poesy disperse.
　　Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing 5
　　And heavy ignorance aloft to fly
　　Have added feathers to the learned's wing
　　And given grace a double majesty.
　　Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
　　Whose influence is thine and born of thee: 10
　　In others' works thou dost but mend the style,
　　And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
　　 But thou art all my art and dost advance
　　 As high as learning my rude ignorance. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXIX
　　
　　Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
　　My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
　　But now my gracious numbers are decay'd
　　And my sick Muse doth give another place.
　　I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument 5
　　Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
　　Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent
　　He robs thee of and pays it thee again.
　　He lends thee virtue and he stole that word
　　From thy behavior; beauty doth he give 10
　　And found it in thy cheek; he can afford
　　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 thou thyself dost pay. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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, 5
　　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 soundless deep doth ride; 10
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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, 5
　　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, 10
　　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, even in the mouths of men. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXXII
　　
　　I grant thou wert not married to my Muse
　　And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
　　The dedicated words which writers use
　　Of their fair subject, blessing every book
　　Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue, 5
　　Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,
　　And therefore art enforced to seek anew
　　Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days
　　And do so, love; yet when they have devised
　　What strained touches rhetoric can lend, 10
　　Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXXIII
　　
　　I never saw that you did painting need
　　And therefore to your fair no painting set;
　　I found, or thought I found, you did exceed
　　The barren tender of a poet's debt;
　　And therefore have I slept in your report, 5
　　That you yourself being extant well might show
　　How far a modern quill doth come too short,
　　Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
　　This silence for my sin you did impute,
　　Which shall be most my glory, being dumb; 10
　　For I impair not beauty being mute,
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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 5
　　That to his subject lends not some small glory;
　　But he that writes of you, if he can tell
　　That you are you, so dignifies his story,
　　Let him but copy what in you is writ,
　　Not making worse what nature made so clear, 10
　　And such a counterpart 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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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 other write good words, 5
　　And like unletter'd clerk still cry 'Amen'
　　To every hymn that able spirit affords
　　In polish'd form of well-refined pen.
　　Hearing you praised, I say 'Tis so, 'tis true,'
　　And to the most of praise add something more; 10
　　But that is in my thought, whose love to you,
　　Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.
　　 Then others for the breath of words respect,
　　 Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXXVI
　　
　　Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
　　Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
　　That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
　　Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
　　Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write 5
　　Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
　　No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
　　Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
　　He, nor that affable familiar ghost
　　Which nightly gulls him with intelligence 10
　　As victors of my silence cannot boast;
　　I was not sick of any fear from thence:
　　 But when your countenance fill'd up his line,
　　 Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXXVII
　　
　　Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
　　And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:
　　The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
　　My bonds in thee are all determinate.
　　For how do I hold thee but by thy granting? 5
　　And for that riches where is my deserving?
　　The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
　　And so my patent back again is swerving.
　　Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing,
　　Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking; 10
　　So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
　　Comes home again, on better judgment making.
　　 Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
　　 In sleep a king, but waking no such matter. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXXVIII
　　
　　When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
　　And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
　　Upon thy side against myself I'll fight,
　　And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.
　　With mine own weakness being best acquainted, 5
　　Upon thy part I can set down a story
　　Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted,
　　That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:
　　And I by this will be a gainer too;
　　For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, 10
　　The injuries that to myself I do,
　　Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
　　 Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
　　 That for thy right myself will bear all wrong. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET LXXXIX
　　
　　Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
　　And I will comment upon that offence;
　　Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,
　　Against thy reasons making no defence.
　　Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, 5
　　To set a form upon desired change,
　　As I'll myself disgrace: knowing thy will,
　　I will acquaintance strangle and look strange,
　　Be absent from thy walks, and in my tongue
　　Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell, 10
　　Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong
　　And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
　　 For thee against myself I'll vow debate,
　　 For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XC
　　
　　Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
　　Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
　　Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
　　And do not drop in for an after-loss:
　　Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scoped this sorrow, 5
　　Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
　　Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
　　To linger out a purposed overthrow.
　　If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
　　When other petty griefs have done their spite 10
　　But in the onset come; so shall I taste
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XCI
　　
　　Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
　　Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' force,
　　Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill,
　　Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
　　And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, 5
　　Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:
　　But these particulars are not my measure;
　　All these I better in one general best.
　　Thy love is better than high birth to me,
　　Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost, 10
　　Of more delight than hawks or horses be;
　　And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:
　　 Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take
　　 All this away and me most wretched make. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XCII
　　
　　But do thy worst to steal thyself away,
　　For term of life thou art assured mine,
　　And life no longer than thy love will stay,
　　For it depends upon that love of thine.
　　Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, 5
　　When in the least of them my life hath end.
　　I see a better state to me belongs
　　Than that which on thy humour doth depend;
　　Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
　　Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie. 10
　　O, what a happy title do I find,
　　Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
　　 But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?
　　 Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XCIII
　　
　　So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
　　Like a deceived husband; so love's face
　　May still seem love to me, though alter'd new;
　　Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:
　　For there can live no hatred in thine eye, 5
　　Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.
　　In many's looks the false heart's history
　　Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange,
　　But heaven in thy creation did decree
　　That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell; 10
　　Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be,
　　Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell.
　　 How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,
　　 if thy sweet virtue answer not thy show! 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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,
　　They rightly do inherit heaven's graces 5
　　And husband nature's riches from expense;
　　They are the lords and owners of their faces,
　　Others but stewards of their excellence.
　　The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
　　Though to itself it only live and die, 10
　　But if that flower with base infection meet,
　　The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
　　 For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
　　 Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XCV
　　
　　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, 5
　　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, 10
　　Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,
　　And all things turn to fair that eyes can see!
　　 Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
　　 The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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 finger of a throned queen 5
　　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 stem wolf betray,
　　If like a lamb he could his looks translate! 10
　　How many gazers mightst 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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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, 5
　　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; 10
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XCVIII
　　
　　From you have I been absent in the spring,
　　When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim
　　Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
　　That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
　　Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell 5
　　Of different flowers in odour and in hue
　　Could make me any summer's story tell,
　　Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;
　　Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
　　Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; 10
　　They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
　　Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
　　 Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,
　　 As with your shadow I with these did play: 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET XCIX
　　
　　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
　　Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
　　In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. 5
　　The lily I condemned for thy hand,
　　And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair:
　　The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
　　One blushing shame, another white despair;
　　A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both 10
　　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.
　　 More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
　　 But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee. 15
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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 5
　　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, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
　　If Time have any wrinkle graven there; 10
　　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 and crooked knife. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CI
　　
　　O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
　　For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
　　Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
　　So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
　　Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say 5
　　'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't lies in thee 10
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CII
　　
　　My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;
　　I love not less, though less the show appear:
　　That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming
　　The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
　　Our love was new and then but in the spring 5
　　When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
　　As Philomel in summer's front doth sing
　　And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:
　　Not that the summer is less pleasant now
　　Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, 10
　　But that wild music burthens every bough
　　And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
　　 Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue,
　　 Because I would not dull you with my song. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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! 5
　　Look in your glass, and there appears a face
　　That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
　　Dulling my lines and doing me disgrace.
　　Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
　　To mar the subject that before was well? 10
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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 5
　　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 beauty, like a dial-hand,
　　Steal from his figure and no pace perceived; 10
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CV
　　
　　Let not my love be call'd idolatry,
　　Nor my beloved as an idol show,
　　Since all alike my songs and praises be
　　To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
　　Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, 5
　　Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
　　Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
　　One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
　　'Fair, kind and true' is all my argument,
　　'Fair, kind, and true' varying to other words; 10
　　And in this change is my invention spent,
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CVI
　　
　　When in the chronicle of wasted time
　　I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
　　And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
　　In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
　　Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, 5
　　Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
　　I see their antique pen would have express'd
　　Even such a beauty as you master now.
　　So all their praises are but prophecies
　　Of this our time, all you prefiguring; 10
　　And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,
　　They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
　　 For we, which now behold these present days,
　　 Had eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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 5
　　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
　　My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes, 10
　　Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
　　While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:
　　 And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
　　 When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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,
　　That may express my love or thy dear merit?
　　Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine, 5
　　I must, each day say o'er the very same,
　　Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
　　Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.
　　So that eternal love in love's fresh case
　　Weighs not the dust and injury of age, 10
　　Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
　　But makes antiquity for aye his page,
　　 Finding the first conceit of love there bred
　　 Where time and outward form would show it dead. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CIX
　　
　　O, never say that I was false of heart,
　　Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify.
　　As easy might I from myself depart
　　As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:
　　That is my home of love: if I have ranged, 5
　　Like him that travels I return again,
　　Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
　　So that myself bring water for my stain.
　　Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
　　All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, 10
　　That it could so preposterously be stain'd,
　　To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
　　 For nothing this wide universe I call,
　　 Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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 5
　　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, have what shall have no end:
　　Mine appetite I never more will grind 10
　　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,
　　 Even to thy pure and most most loving breast. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET 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, 5
　　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 eisel 'gainst my strong infection 10
　　No bitterness that I will bitter think,
　　Nor double penance, to correct correction.
　　 Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye
　　 Even that your pity is enough to cure me. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXII
　　
　　Your love and pity doth the impression fill
　　Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;
　　For what care I who calls me well or ill,
　　So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
　　You are my all the world, and I must strive 5
　　To know my shames and praises from your tongue:
　　None else to me, nor I to none alive,
　　That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong.
　　In so profound abysm I throw all care
　　Of others' voices, that my adder's sense 10
　　To critic and to flatterer stopped are.
　　Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:
　　 You are so strongly in my purpose bred
　　 That all the world besides methinks are dead. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXIII
　　
　　Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
　　And that which governs me to go about
　　Doth part his function and is partly blind,
　　Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
　　For it no form delivers to the heart 5
　　Of bird of flower, or shape, which it doth latch:
　　Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
　　Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:
　　For if it see the rudest or gentlest sight,
　　The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature, 10
　　The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
　　The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature:
　　 Incapable of more, replete with you,
　　 My most true mind thus makes mine eye untrue. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXIV
　　
　　Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,
　　Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?
　　Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,
　　And that your love taught it this alchemy,
　　To make of monsters and things indigest 5
　　Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
　　Creating every bad a perfect best,
　　As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
　　O,'tis the first; 'tis flattery in my seeing,
　　And my great mind most kingly drinks it up: 10
　　Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,
　　And to his palate doth prepare the cup:
　　 If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin
　　 That mine eye loves it and doth first begin. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXV
　　
　　Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
　　Even those that said I could not love you dearer:
　　Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
　　My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
　　But reckoning time, whose million'd accidents 5
　　Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings,
　　Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
　　Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
　　Alas, why, fearing of time's tyranny,
　　Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,' 10
　　When I was certain o'er incertainty,
　　Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
　　 Love is a babe; then might I not say so,
　　 To give full growth to that which still doth grow? 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXVI
　　
　　Let me not to the marriage of true minds
　　Admit impediments. Love is not love
　　Which alters when it alteration finds,
　　Or bends with the remover to remove:
　　O no! it is an ever-fixed mark 5
　　That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
　　It is the star to every wandering bark,
　　Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
　　Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
　　Within his bending sickle's compass come: 10
　　Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
　　But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
　　 If this be error and upon me proved,
　　 I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXVII
　　
　　Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all
　　Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
　　Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
　　Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;
　　That I have frequent been with unknown minds 5
　　And given to time your own dear-purchased right
　　That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
　　Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
　　Book both my wilfulness and errors down
　　And on just proof surmise accumulate; 10
　　Bring me within the level of your frown,
　　But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate;
　　 Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
　　 The constancy and virtue of your love. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXVIII
　　
　　Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
　　With eager compounds we our palate urge,
　　As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
　　We sicken to shun sickness when we purge,
　　Even so, being tuff of your ne'er-cloying sweetness, 5
　　To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding
　　And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
　　To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
　　Thus policy in love, to anticipate
　　The ills that were not, grew to faults assured 10
　　And brought to medicine a healthful state
　　Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured:
　　 But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,
　　 Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXIX
　　
　　What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
　　Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,
　　Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,
　　Still losing when I saw myself to win!
　　What wretched errors hath my heart committed, 5
　　Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!
　　How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
　　In the distraction of this madding fever!
　　O benefit of ill! now I find true
　　That better is by evil still made better; 10
　　And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,
　　Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
　　 So I return rebuked to my content
　　 And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXX
　　
　　That you were once unkind befriends me now,
　　And for that sorrow which I then did feel
　　Needs must I under my transgression bow,
　　Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.
　　For if you were by my unkindness shaken 5
　　As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time,
　　And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
　　To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
　　O, that our night of woe might have remember'd
　　My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits, 10
　　And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd
　　The humble slave which wounded bosoms fits!
　　 But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
　　 Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXXI
　　
　　'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
　　When not to be receives reproach of being,
　　And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd
　　Not by our feeling but by others' seeing:
　　For why should others false adulterate eyes 5
　　Give salutation to my sportive blood?
　　Or on my frailties why 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: 10
　　I may be straight, though 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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXXII
　　
　　Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
　　Full character'd with lasting memory,
　　Which shall above that idle rank remain
　　Beyond all date, even to eternity;
　　Or at the least, so long as brain and heart 5
　　Have faculty by nature to subsist;
　　Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
　　Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.
　　That poor retention could not so much hold,
　　Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score; 10
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXXIII
　　
　　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 5
　　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 wondering at the present nor the past, 10
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXXIV
　　
　　If my dear love were but the child of state,
　　It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'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; 5
　　It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
　　Under the blow of thralled discontent,
　　Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls:
　　It fears not policy, that heretic,
　　Which works on leases of short-number'd hours, 10
　　But all alone stands hugely politic,
　　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 lived for crime. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXXV
　　
　　Were 't aught to me 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 5
　　Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
　　For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,
　　Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
　　No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
　　And take thou my oblation, poor but free, 10
　　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. 14
　　
　　
　　
　　SONNET CXXVI
　　
　　O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
　　Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;
　　Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
　　Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow'st;
　　If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, 5
　　As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
　　She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
　　May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
　　Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
　　She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure: 10
　　Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be,
　　And her quietus is to render thee.
　　 ( )
　　 ( ) 14