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THE SONNETS |
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by William Shakespeare |
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From fairest creatures we desire increase, |
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That thereby beauty's rose might never die, |
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But as the riper should by time decease, |
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His tender heir might bear his memory: |
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But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes, |
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Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, |
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Making a famine where abundance lies, |
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Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel: |
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Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament, |
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And only herald to the gaudy spring, |
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Within thine own bud buriest thy content, |
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And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding: |
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Pity the world, or else this glutton be, |
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To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. |
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When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, |
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And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, |
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Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now, |
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Will be a tattered weed of small worth held: |
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Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies, |
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Where all the treasure of thy lusty days; |
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To say within thine own deep sunken eyes, |
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Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise. |
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How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use, |
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If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine |
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Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse' |
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Proving his beauty by succession thine. |
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This were to be new made when thou art old, |
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And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold. |
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Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest, |
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Now is the time that face should form another, |
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Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, |
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Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. |
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For where is she so fair whose uneared womb |
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Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? |
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Or who is he so fond will be the tomb, |
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Of his self-love to stop posterity? |
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Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee |
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Calls back the lovely April of her prime, |
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So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, |
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Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time. |
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But if thou live remembered not to be, |
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Die single and thine image dies with thee. |
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Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend, |
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Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy? |
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Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend, |
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And being frank she lends to those are free: |
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Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse, |
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The bounteous largess given thee to give? |
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Profitless usurer why dost thou use |
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So great a sum of sums yet canst not live? |
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For having traffic with thy self alone, |
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Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive, |
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Then how when nature calls thee to be gone, |
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What acceptable audit canst thou leave? |
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Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee, |
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Which used lives th' executor to be. |
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Those hours that with gentle work did frame |
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The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell |
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Will play the tyrants to the very same, |
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And that unfair which fairly doth excel: |
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For never-resting time leads summer on |
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To hideous winter and confounds him there, |
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Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, |
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Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where: |
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Then were not summer's distillation left |
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A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, |
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Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, |
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Nor it nor no remembrance what it was. |
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But flowers distilled though they with winter meet, |
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Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet. |
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Then let not winter's ragged hand deface, |
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In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled: |
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Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place, |
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With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed: |
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That use is not forbidden usury, |
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Which happies those that pay the willing loan; |
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That's for thy self to breed another thee, |
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Or ten times happier be it ten for one, |
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Ten times thy self were happier than thou art, |
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If ten of thine ten times refigured thee: |
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Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart, |
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Leaving thee living in posterity? |
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Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair, |
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To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir. |
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Lo in the orient when the gracious light |
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Lifts up his burning head, each under eye |
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Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, |
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Serving with looks his sacred majesty, |
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And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill, |
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Resembling strong youth in his middle age, |
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Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, |
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Attending on his golden pilgrimage: |
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But when from highmost pitch with weary car, |
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Like feeble age he reeleth from the day, |
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The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are |
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From his low tract and look another way: |
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So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon: |
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Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son. |
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Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? |
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Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy: |
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Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly, |
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Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy? |
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If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, |
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By unions married do offend thine ear, |
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They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds |
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In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear: |
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Mark how one string sweet husband to another, |
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Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; |
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Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother, |
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Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing: |
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Whose speechless song being many, seeming one, |
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Sings this to thee, 'Thou single wilt prove none'. |
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Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye, |
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That thou consum'st thy self in single life? |
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Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die, |
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The world will wail thee like a makeless wife, |
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The world will be thy widow and still weep, |
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That thou no form of thee hast left behind, |
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When every private widow well may keep, |
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By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind: |
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Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend |
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Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it; |
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But beauty's waste hath in the world an end, |
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And kept unused the user so destroys it: |
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No love toward others in that bosom sits |
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That on himself such murd'rous shame commits. |
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For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any |
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Who for thy self art so unprovident. |
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Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many, |
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But that thou none lov'st is most evident: |
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For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate, |
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That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire, |
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Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate |
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Which to repair should be thy chief desire: |
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O change thy thought, that I may change my mind, |
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Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love? |
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Be as thy presence is gracious and kind, |
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Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove, |
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Make thee another self for love of me, |
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That beauty still may live in thine or thee. |
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As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st, |
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In one of thine, from that which thou departest, |
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And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st, |
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Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest, |
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Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase, |
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Without this folly, age, and cold decay, |
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If all were minded so, the times should cease, |
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And threescore year would make the world away: |
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Let those whom nature hath not made for store, |
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Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish: |
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Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more; |
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Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish: |
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She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby, |
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Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die. |
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When I do count the clock that tells the time, |
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And see the brave day sunk in hideous night, |
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When I behold the violet past prime, |
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And sable curls all silvered o'er with white: |
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When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, |
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Which erst from heat did canopy the herd |
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And summer's green all girded up in sheaves |
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Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard: |
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Then of thy beauty do I question make |
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That thou among the wastes of time must go, |
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Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake, |
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And die as fast as they see others grow, |
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And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence |
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Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence. |
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O that you were your self, but love you are |
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No longer yours, than you your self here live, |
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Against this coming end you should prepare, |
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And your sweet semblance to some other give. |
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So should that beauty which you hold in lease |
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Find no determination, then you were |
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Your self again after your self's decease, |
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When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. |
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Who lets so fair a house fall to decay, |
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Which husbandry in honour might uphold, |
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Against the stormy gusts of winter's day |
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And barren rage of death's eternal cold? |
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O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know, |
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You had a father, let your son say so. |
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Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck, |
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And yet methinks I have astronomy, |
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But not to tell of good, or evil luck, |
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Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality, |
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Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell; |
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Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind, |
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Or say with princes if it shall go well |
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By oft predict that I in heaven find. |
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But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, |
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And constant stars in them I read such art |
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As truth and beauty shall together thrive |
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If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert: |
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Or else of thee this I prognosticate, |
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Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date. |
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When I consider every thing that grows |
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Holds in perfection but a little moment. |
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That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows |
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Whereon the stars in secret influence comment. |
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When I perceive that men as plants increase, |
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Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky: |
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Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, |
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And wear their brave state out of memory. |
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Then the conceit of this inconstant stay, |
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Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, |
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Where wasteful time debateth with decay |
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To change your day of youth to sullied night, |
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And all in war with Time for love of you, |
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As he takes from you, I engraft you new. |
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But wherefore do not you a mightier way |
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Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time? |
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And fortify your self in your decay |
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With means more blessed than my barren rhyme? |
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Now stand you on the top of happy hours, |
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And many maiden gardens yet unset, |
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With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers, |
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Much liker than your painted counterfeit: |
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So should the lines of life that life repair |
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Which this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen |
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Neither in inward worth nor outward fair |
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Can make you live your self in eyes of men. |
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To give away your self, keeps your self still, |
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And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill. |
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Who will believe my verse in time to come |
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If it were filled with your most high deserts? |
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Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb |
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Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts: |
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If I could write the beauty of your eyes, |
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And in fresh numbers number all your graces, |
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The age to come would say this poet lies, |
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Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces. |
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So should my papers (yellowed with their age) |
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Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue, |
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And your true rights be termed a poet's rage, |
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And stretched metre of an antique song. |
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But were some child of yours alive that time, |
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You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme. |
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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? |
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Thou art more lovely and more temperate: |
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Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, |
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And summer's lease hath all too short a date: |
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Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, |
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And often is his gold complexion dimmed, |
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And every fair from fair sometime declines, |
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By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: |
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But thy eternal summer shall not fade, |
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Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, |
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Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, |
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When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, |
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So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, |
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So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. |
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Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws, |
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And make the earth devour her own sweet brood, |
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Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, |
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And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood, |
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Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st, |
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And do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time |
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To the wide world and all her fading sweets: |
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But I forbid thee one most heinous crime, |
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O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, |
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Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen, |
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Him in thy course untainted do allow, |
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For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. |
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Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong, |
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My love shall in my verse ever live young. |
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A woman's face with nature's own hand painted, |
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Hast thou the master mistress of my passion, |
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A woman's gentle heart but not acquainted |
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With shifting change as is false women's fashion, |
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An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling: |
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Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth, |
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A man in hue all hues in his controlling, |
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Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth. |
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And for a woman wert thou first created, |
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Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting, |
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And by addition me of thee defeated, |
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By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. |
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But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure, |
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Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure. |
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So is it not with me as with that muse, |
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Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, |
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Who heaven it self for ornament doth use, |
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And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, |
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Making a couplement of proud compare |
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With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems: |
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With April's first-born flowers and all things rare, |
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That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems. |
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O let me true in love but truly write, |
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And then believe me, my love is as fair, |
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As any mother's child, though not so bright |
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As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air: |
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Let them say more that like of hearsay well, |
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I will not praise that purpose not to sell. |
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My glass shall not persuade me I am old, |
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So long as youth and thou are of one date, |
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But when in thee time's furrows I behold, |
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Then look I death my days should expiate. |
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For all that beauty that doth cover thee, |
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Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, |
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Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me, |
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How can I then be elder than thou art? |
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O therefore love be of thyself so wary, |
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As I not for my self, but for thee will, |
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Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary |
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As tender nurse her babe from faring ill. |
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Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain, |
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Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again. |
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As an unperfect actor on the stage, |
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Who with his fear is put beside his part, |
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Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, |
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Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart; |
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So I for fear of trust, forget to say, |
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The perfect ceremony of love's rite, |
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And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, |
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O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might: |
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O let my looks be then the eloquence, |
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And dumb presagers of my speaking breast, |
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Who plead for love, and look for recompense, |
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More than that tongue that more hath more expressed. |
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O learn to read what silent love hath writ, |
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To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit. |
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Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled, |
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Thy beauty's form in table of my heart, |
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My body is the frame wherein 'tis held, |
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And perspective it is best painter's art. |
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For through the painter must you see his skill, |
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To find where your true image pictured lies, |
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Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still, |
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That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes: |
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Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done, |
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Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me |
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Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun |
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Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee; |
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Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art, |
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They draw but what they see, know not the heart. |
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Let those who are in favour with their stars, |
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Of public honour and proud titles boast, |
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Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars |
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Unlooked for joy in that I honour most; |
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Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread, |
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But as the marigold at the sun's eye, |
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And in themselves their pride lies buried, |
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For at a frown they in their glory die. |
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The painful warrior famoused for fight, |
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After a thousand victories once foiled, |
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Is from the book of honour razed quite, |
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And all the rest forgot for which he toiled: |
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Then happy I that love and am beloved |
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Where I may not remove nor be removed. |
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Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage |
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Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit; |
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To thee I send this written embassage |
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To witness duty, not to show my wit. |
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Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine |
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May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it; |
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But that I hope some good conceit of thine |
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In thy soul's thought (all naked) will bestow it: |
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Till whatsoever star that guides my moving, |
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Points on me graciously with fair aspect, |
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And puts apparel on my tattered loving, |
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To show me worthy of thy sweet respect, |
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Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee, |
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Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me. |
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Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, |
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The dear respose for limbs with travel tired, |
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But then begins a journey in my head |
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To work my mind, when body's work's expired. |
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For then my thoughts (from far where I abide) |
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Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, |
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And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, |
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Looking on darkness which the blind do see. |
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Save that my soul's imaginary sight |
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Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, |
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Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night) |
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Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. |
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Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind, |
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For thee, and for my self, no quiet find. |
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How can I then return in happy plight |
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That am debarred the benefit of rest? |
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When day's oppression is not eased by night, |
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But day by night and night by day oppressed. |
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And each (though enemies to either's reign) |
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Do in consent shake hands to torture me, |
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The one by toil, the other to complain |
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How far I toil, still farther off from thee. |
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I tell the day to please him thou art bright, |
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And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven: |
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So flatter I the swart-complexioned night, |
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When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even. |
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But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, |
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And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger |
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When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, |
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I all alone beweep my outcast state, |
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And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, |
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And look upon my self and curse my fate, |
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Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, |
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Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, |
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Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, |
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With what I most enjoy contented least, |
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Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising, |
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Haply I think on thee, and then my state, |
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(Like to the lark at break of day arising |
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From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate, |
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For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, |
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That then I scorn to change my state with kings. |
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When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, |
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I summon up remembrance of things past, |
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I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, |
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And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: |
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Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow) |
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For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, |
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And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe, |
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And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight. |
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Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, |
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And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er |
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The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, |
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Which I new pay as if not paid before. |
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But if the while I think on thee (dear friend) |
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All losses are restored, and sorrows end. |
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Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, |
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Which I by lacking have supposed dead, |
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And there reigns love and all love's loving parts, |
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And all those friends which I thought buried. |
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How many a holy and obsequious tear |
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Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye, |
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As interest of the dead, which now appear, |
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But things removed that hidden in thee lie. |
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Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, |
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Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, |
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Who all their parts of me to thee did give, |
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That due of many, now is thine alone. |
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Their images I loved, I view in thee, |
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And thou (all they) hast all the all of me. |
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If thou survive my well-contented day, |
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When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover |
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And shalt by fortune once more re-survey |
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These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover: |
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Compare them with the bett'ring of the time, |
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And though they be outstripped by every pen, |
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Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, |
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Exceeded by the height of happier men. |
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O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought, |
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'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, |
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A dearer birth than this his love had brought |
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To march in ranks of better equipage: |
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But since he died and poets better prove, |
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Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'. |
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Full many a glorious morning have I seen, |
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Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, |
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Kissing with golden face the meadows green; |
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Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy: |
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Anon permit the basest clouds to ride, |
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With ugly rack on his celestial face, |
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And from the forlorn world his visage hide |
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Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: |
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Even so my sun one early morn did shine, |
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With all triumphant splendour on my brow, |
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But out alack, he was but one hour mine, |
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The region cloud hath masked him from me now. |
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Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth, |
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Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth. |
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Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day, |
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And make me travel forth without my cloak, |
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To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way, |
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Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke? |
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'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break, |
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To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, |
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For no man well of such a salve can speak, |
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That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace: |
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Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief, |
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Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss, |
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Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief |
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To him that bears the strong offence's cross. |
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Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds, |
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And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds. |
|
|
|
|
|
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No more be grieved at that which thou hast done, |
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Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud, |
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Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, |
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And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. |
|
All men make faults, and even I in this, |
|
Authorizing thy trespass with compare, |
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My self 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, |
|
And 'gainst my self a lawful plea commence: |
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Such civil war is in my love and hate, |
|
That I an accessary needs must be, |
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To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me. |
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|
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Let me confess that we two must be twain, |
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Although our undivided loves are one: |
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So shall those blots that do with me remain, |
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Without thy help, by me be borne alone. |
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In our two loves there is but one respect, |
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Though in our lives a separable spite, |
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Which though it alter not love's sole effect, |
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Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight. |
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I may not evermore acknowledge thee, |
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Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame, |
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Nor thou with public kindness honour me, |
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Unless thou take that honour from thy name: |
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But do not so, I love thee in such sort, |
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As thou being mine, mine is thy good report. |
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|
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As a decrepit father takes delight, |
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To see his active child do deeds of youth, |
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So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite |
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Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth. |
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For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit, |
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Or any of these all, or all, or more |
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Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit, |
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I make my love engrafted to this store: |
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So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised, |
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Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give, |
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That I in thy abundance am sufficed, |
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And by a part of all thy glory live: |
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Look what is best, that best I wish in thee, |
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This wish I have, then ten times happy me. |
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|
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How can my muse want subject to invent |
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While thou dost breathe that pour'st into my verse, |
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Thine own sweet argument, too excellent, |
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For every vulgar paper to rehearse? |
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O give thy self the thanks if aught in me, |
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Worthy perusal stand against thy sight, |
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For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee, |
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When thou thy self dost give invention light? |
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Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth |
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Than those old nine which rhymers invocate, |
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And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth |
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Eternal numbers to outlive long date. |
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If my slight muse do please these curious days, |
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The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise. |
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O how thy worth with manners may I sing, |
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When thou art all the better part of me? |
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What can mine own praise to mine own self bring: |
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And what is't but mine own when I praise thee? |
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Even for this, let us divided live, |
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And our dear love lose name of single one, |
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That by this separation I may give: |
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That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone: |
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O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove, |
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Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave, |
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To entertain the time with thoughts of love, |
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Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive. |
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And that thou teachest how to make one twain, |
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By praising him here who doth hence remain. |
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Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all, |
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What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? |
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No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call, |
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All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more: |
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Then if for my love, thou my love receivest, |
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I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest, |
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But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest |
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By wilful taste of what thy self refusest. |
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I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief |
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Although thou steal thee all my poverty: |
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And yet love knows it is a greater grief |
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To bear greater wrong, than hate's known injury. |
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Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows, |
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Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes. |
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Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits, |
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When I am sometime absent from thy heart, |
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Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits, |
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For still temptation follows where thou art. |
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Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won, |
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Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed. |
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And when a woman woos, what woman's son, |
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Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed? |
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Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear, |
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And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth, |
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Who lead thee in their riot even there |
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Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth: |
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Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee, |
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Thine by thy beauty being false to me. |
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That thou hast her it is not all my grief, |
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And yet it may be said I loved her dearly, |
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That she hath thee is of my wailing chief, |
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A loss in love that touches me more nearly. |
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Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye, |
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Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her, |
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And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, |
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Suff'ring my friend for my sake to approve her. |
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If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain, |
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And losing her, my friend hath found that loss, |
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Both find each other, and I lose both twain, |
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And both for my sake lay on me this cross, |
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But here's the joy, my friend and I are one, |
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Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone. |
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When most I wink then do mine eyes best see, |
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For all the day they view things unrespected, |
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But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, |
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And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed. |
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Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright |
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How would thy shadow's form, form happy show, |
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To the clear day with thy much clearer light, |
|
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! |
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How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made, |
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By looking on thee in the living day, |
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When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade, |
|
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay! |
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All days are nights to see till I see thee, |
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And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. |
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|
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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, |
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From limits far remote, where thou dost stay, |
|
No matter then although my foot did stand |
|
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, |
|
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. |
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|
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The other two, slight air, and purging fire, |
|
Are both with thee, wherever I abide, |
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The first my thought, the other my desire, |
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These present-absent with swift motion slide. |
|
For when these quicker elements are gone |
|
In tender embassy of love to thee, |
|
My life being made of four, with two alone, |
|
Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy. |
|
Until life's composition be recured, |
|
By those swift messengers returned from thee, |
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Who even but now come back again assured, |
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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. |
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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, |
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(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes) |
|
But the defendant doth that plea deny, |
|
And says in him thy fair appearance lies. |
|
To side this title is impanelled |
|
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart, |
|
And by their verdict is determined |
|
The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part. |
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As thus, mine eye's due is thy outward part, |
|
And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart. |
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Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, |
|
And each doth good turns now unto the other, |
|
When that mine eye is famished for a look, |
|
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother; |
|
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, |
|
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, |
|
Thy self away, art present still with me, |
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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. |
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How careful was I when I took my way, |
|
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust, |
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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, |
|
Most worthy 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 locked up in any chest, |
|
Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art, |
|
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. |
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|
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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, |
|
Called to that audit by advised respects, |
|
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass, |
|
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, |
|
And this my hand, against my self 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. |
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How heavy do I journey on the way, |
|
When what I seek (my weary travel's end) |
|
Doth teach that case and that repose to say |
|
'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.' |
|
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, |
|
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, |
|
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. |
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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? |
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Till I return of posting is no need. |
|
O what excuse will my poor beast then find, |
|
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) |
|
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. |
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|
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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, |
|
Since seldom coming in that 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, |
|
To make some special instant special-blest, |
|
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride. |
|
Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope, |
|
Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope. |
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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 foison 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. |
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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 only is their show, |
|
They live unwooed, 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 vade, by verse distills your truth. |
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|
|
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, besmeared with sluttish time. |
|
When wasteful war shall statues overturn, |
|
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, |
|
Even in the eyes of all posterity |
|
That wear this world out to the ending doom. |
|
So till the judgment that your self arise, |
|
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. |
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Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said |
|
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, |
|
Which but to-day by feeding is allayed, |
|
To-morrow sharpened in his former might. |
|
So love be thou, although to-day thou fill |
|
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness, |
|
To-morrow see again, and do not kill |
|
The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness: |
|
Let this sad interim like the ocean be |
|
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new, |
|
Come daily to the banks, that when they see: |
|
Return of love, more blest may be the view. |
|
Or call it winter, which being full of care, |
|
Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare. |
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|
|
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, |
|
(Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill. |
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|
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That god forbid, that made me first your slave, |
|
I should in thought control your times of pleasure, |
|
Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave, |
|
Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure. |
|
O let me suffer (being at your beck) |
|
Th' imprisoned 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 your self may privilage your time |
|
To what you will, to you it doth belong, |
|
Your self to pardon of self-doing crime. |
|
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell, |
|
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well. |
|
|
|
If there be nothing new, but that which is, |
|
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled, |
|
Which labouring for invention bear amis |
|
The second burthen of a former child! |
|
O that record could with a backward look, |
|
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, |
|
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. |
|
|
|
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, |
|
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned, |
|
Crooked eclipses '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, |
|
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. |
|
|
|
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 |
|
So far from home into my deeds to pry, |
|
To find out shames and idle hours in me, |
|
The scope and tenure of thy jealousy? |
|
O no, thy love though much, is not so great, |
|
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake, |
|
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. |
|
|
|
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, |
|
No shape so true, no truth of such account, |
|
And for my self mine own worth do define, |
|
As I all other in all worths surmount. |
|
But when my glass shows me my self indeed |
|
beated and chopt with tanned antiquity, |
|
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read: |
|
Self, so self-loving were iniquity. |
|
'Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise, |
|
Painting my age with beauty of thy days. |
|
|
|
Against my love shall be as I am now |
|
With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn, |
|
When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow |
|
With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn |
|
Hath travelled on to age's steepy night, |
|
And all those beauties whereof now he's king |
|
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight, |
|
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 defaced |
|
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age, |
|
When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased, |
|
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 watery main, |
|
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store. |
|
When I have seen such interchange of State, |
|
Or state it self confounded, to decay, |
|
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. |
|
|
|
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 honey breath hold out, |
|
Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring 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 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. |
|
|
|
Tired with all these for restful death I cry, |
|
As to behold desert a beggar born, |
|
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, |
|
And purest faith unhappily forsworn, |
|
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, |
|
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, |
|
And simple truth miscalled 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. |
|
|
|
Ah wherefore with infection should he live, |
|
And with his presence grace impiety, |
|
That sin by him advantage should achieve, |
|
And lace it self with his society? |
|
Why should false painting imitate his cheek, |
|
And steal dead seeming 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, |
|
Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins, |
|
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. |
|
|
|
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, |
|
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now, |
|
Before these bastard signs of fair were born, |
|
Or durst inhabit on a living brow: |
|
Before the golden tresses of the dead, |
|
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, it self and true, |
|
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. |
|
|
|
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 crowned, |
|
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own, |
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In other accents do this praise confound |
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By seeing farther than the eye hath shown. |
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They look into the beauty of thy mind, |
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And that in guess they measure by thy deeds, |
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Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind) |
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To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds: |
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But why thy odour matcheth not thy show, |
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The soil is this, that thou dost common grow. |
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That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, |
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For slander's mark was ever yet the fair, |
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The ornament of beauty is suspect, |
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A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. |
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So thou be good, slander doth but approve, |
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Thy worth the greater being wooed of time, |
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For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, |
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And thou present'st a pure unstained prime. |
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Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days, |
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Either not assailed, or victor being charged, |
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Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise, |
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To tie up envy, evermore enlarged, |
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If some suspect of ill masked not thy show, |
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Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe. |
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No longer mourn for me when I am dead, |
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Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell |
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Give warning to the world that I am fled |
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From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: |
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Nay if you read this line, remember not, |
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The hand that writ it, for I love you so, |
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That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, |
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If thinking on me then should make you woe. |
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O if (I say) you look upon this verse, |
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When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay, |
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Do not so much as my poor name rehearse; |
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But let your love even with my life decay. |
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Lest the wise world should look into your moan, |
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And mock you with me after I am gone. |
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O lest the world should task you to recite, |
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What merit lived in me that you should love |
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After my death (dear love) forget me quite, |
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For you in me can nothing worthy prove. |
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Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, |
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To do more for me than mine own desert, |
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And hang more praise upon deceased I, |
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Than niggard truth would willingly impart: |
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O lest your true love may seem false in this, |
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That you for love speak well of me untrue, |
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My name be buried where my body is, |
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And live no more to shame nor me, nor you. |
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For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, |
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And so should you, to love things nothing worth. |
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That time of year thou mayst in me behold, |
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When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang |
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Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, |
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Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. |
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In me thou seest the twilight of such day, |
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As after sunset fadeth in the west, |
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Which by and by black night doth take away, |
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Death's second self that seals up all in rest. |
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In me thou seest the glowing of such fire, |
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That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, |
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As the death-bed, whereon it must expire, |
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Consumed with that which it was nourished by. |
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This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, |
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To love that well, which thou must leave ere long. |
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But be contented when that fell arrest, |
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Without all bail shall carry me away, |
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My life hath in this line some interest, |
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Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. |
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When thou reviewest this, thou dost review, |
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The very part was consecrate to thee, |
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The earth can have but earth, which is his due, |
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My spirit is thine the better part of me, |
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So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, |
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The prey of worms, my body being dead, |
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The coward conquest of a wretch's knife, |
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Too base of thee to be remembered, |
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The worth of that, is that which it contains, |
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And that is this, and this with thee remains. |
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So are you to my thoughts as food to life, |
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Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground; |
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And for the peace of you I hold such strife |
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As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found. |
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Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon |
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Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure, |
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Now counting best to be with you alone, |
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Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure, |
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Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, |
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And by and by clean starved for a look, |
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Possessing or pursuing no delight |
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Save what is had, or must from you be took. |
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Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, |
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Or gluttoning on all, or all away. |
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Why is my verse so barren of new pride? |
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So far from variation or quick change? |
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Why with the time do I not glance aside |
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To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? |
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Why write I still all one, ever the same, |
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And keep invention in a noted weed, |
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That every word doth almost tell my name, |
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Showing their birth, and where they did proceed? |
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O know sweet love I always write of you, |
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And you and love are still my argument: |
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So all my best is dressing old words new, |
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Spending again what is already spent: |
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For as the sun is daily new and old, |
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So is my love still telling what is told. |
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Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, |
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Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste, |
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These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear, |
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And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste. |
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The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show, |
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Of mouthed graves will give thee memory, |
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Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know, |
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Time's thievish progress to eternity. |
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Look what thy memory cannot contain, |
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Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find |
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Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain, |
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To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. |
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These offices, so oft as thou wilt look, |
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Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book. |
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So oft have I invoked thee for my muse, |
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And found such fair assistance in my verse, |
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As every alien pen hath got my use, |
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And under thee their poesy disperse. |
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Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing, |
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And heavy ignorance aloft to fly, |
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Have added feathers to the learned's wing, |
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And given grace a double majesty. |
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Yet be most proud of that which I compile, |
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Whose influence is thine, and born of thee, |
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In others' works thou dost but mend the style, |
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And arts with thy sweet graces graced be. |
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But thou art all my art, and dost advance |
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As high as learning, my rude ignorance. |
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Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, |
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My verse alone had all thy gentle grace, |
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But now my gracious numbers are decayed, |
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And my sick muse doth give an other place. |
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I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument |
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Deserves the travail of a worthier pen, |
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Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent, |
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He robs thee of, and pays it thee again, |
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He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word, |
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From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give |
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And found it in thy cheek: he can afford |
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No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live. |
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Then thank him not for that which he doth say, |
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Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay. |
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O how I faint when I of you do write, |
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Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, |
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And in the praise thereof spends all his might, |
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To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame. |
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But since your worth (wide as the ocean is) |
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The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, |
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My saucy bark (inferior far to his) |
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On your broad main doth wilfully appear. |
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Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, |
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Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride, |
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Or (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat, |
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He of tall building, and of goodly pride. |
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Then if he thrive and I be cast away, |
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The worst was this, my love was my decay. |
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Or I shall live your epitaph to make, |
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Or you survive when I in earth am rotten, |
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From hence your memory death cannot take, |
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Although in me each part will be forgotten. |
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Your name from hence immortal life shall have, |
|
Though I (once gone) to all the world must die, |
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The earth can yield me but a common grave, |
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When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie, |
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Your monument shall be my gentle verse, |
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Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read, |
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And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse, |
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When all the breathers of this world are dead, |
|
You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen) |
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Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men. |
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I grant thou wert not married to my muse, |
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And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook |
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The dedicated words which writers use |
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Of their fair subject, blessing every book. |
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Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue, |
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Finding thy worth a limit past my praise, |
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And therefore art enforced to seek anew, |
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Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days. |
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And do so love, yet when they have devised, |
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What strained touches rhetoric can lend, |
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Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized, |
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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. |
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I never saw that you did painting need, |
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And therefore to your fair no painting set, |
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I found (or thought I found) you did exceed, |
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That barren tender of a poet's debt: |
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And therefore have I slept in your report, |
|
That you your self being extant well might show, |
|
How far a modern quill doth come too short, |
|
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. |
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This silence for my sin you did impute, |
|
Which shall be most my glory being dumb, |
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For I impair not beauty being mute, |
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When others would give life, and bring a tomb. |
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There lives more life in one of your fair eyes, |
|
Than both your poets can in praise devise. |
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Who is it that says most, which can say more, |
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Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you? |
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In whose confine immured is the store, |
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Which should example where your equal grew. |
|
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell, |
|
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, |
|
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit, |
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Making his style admired every where. |
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You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, |
|
Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse. |
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My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still, |
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While comments of your praise richly compiled, |
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Reserve their character with golden quill, |
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And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. |
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I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words, |
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And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen, |
|
To every hymn that able spirit affords, |
|
In polished form of well refined pen. |
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Hearing you praised, I say 'tis so, 'tis true, |
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And to the most of praise add something more, |
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But that is in my thought, whose love to you |
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(Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before, |
|
Then others, for the breath of words respect, |
|
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect. |
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Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, |
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Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you, |
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That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, |
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Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? |
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Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write, |
|
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? |
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No, neither he, nor his compeers by night |
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Giving him aid, my verse astonished. |
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He nor that affable familiar ghost |
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Which nightly gulls him with intelligence, |
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As victors of my silence cannot boast, |
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I was not sick of any fear from thence. |
|
But when your countenance filled up his line, |
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Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine. |
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Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, |
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And like enough thou know'st thy estimate, |
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The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing: |
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My bonds in thee are all determinate. |
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For how do I hold thee but by thy granting, |
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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. |
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Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, |
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Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking, |
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So thy great gift upon misprision growing, |
|
Comes home again, on better judgement making. |
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Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter, |
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In sleep a king, but waking no such matter. |
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When thou shalt be disposed to set me light, |
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And place my merit in the eye of scorn, |
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Upon thy side, against my self I'll fight, |
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And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn: |
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With mine own weakness being best acquainted, |
|
Upon thy part I can set down a story |
|
Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted: |
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That thou in losing me, shalt win much glory: |
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And I by this will be a gainer too, |
|
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, |
|
The injuries that to my self I do, |
|
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me. |
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Such is my love, to thee I so belong, |
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That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong. |
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Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, |
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And I will comment upon that offence, |
|
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt: |
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Against thy reasons making no defence. |
|
Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill, |
|
To set a form upon desired change, |
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As I'll my self disgrace, knowing thy will, |
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I will acquaintance strangle and look strange: |
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Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue, |
|
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell, |
|
Lest I (too much profane) should do it wronk: |
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And haply of our old acquaintance tell. |
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For thee, against my self I'll vow debate, |
|
For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate. |
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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 'scaped this sorrow, |
|
Come in the rearward of a conquered 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, |
|
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. |
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Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, |
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Some in their wealth, some in their body's 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, |
|
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' costs, |
|
Of more delight than hawks and 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 wretchcd make. |
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But do thy worst to steal thy self away, |
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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, |
|
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, |
|
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. |
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So shall I live, supposing thou art true, |
|
Like a deceived husband, so love's face, |
|
May still seem love to me, though altered new: |
|
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place. |
|
For there can live no hatred in thine eye, |
|
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, |
|
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. |
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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, |
|
And husband nature's riches from expense, |
|
Tibey 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 it self, it only live and die, |
|
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. |
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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, |
|
(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, |
|
Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot, |
|
And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see! |
|
Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege, |
|
The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge. |
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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 mak'st faults graces, that to thee resort: |
|
As on the finger of a throned queen, |
|
The basest jewel will be well esteemed: |
|
So are those errors that in thee are seen, |
|
To truths translated, and for true things deemed. |
|
How many lambs might the stern wolf betray, |
|
If like a lamb he could his looks translate! |
|
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. |
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|
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 everywhere! |
|
And yet this time removed was summer's time, |
|
The teeming autumn big with rich increase, |
|
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, |
|
Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease: |
|
Yet this abundant issue seemed to me |
|
But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit, |
|
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. |
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|
From you have I been absent in the spring, |
|
When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim) |
|
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing: |
|
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. |
|
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell |
|
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, |
|
They were but sweet, but figures of delight: |
|
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. |
|
Yet seemed it winter still, and you away, |
|
As with your shadow I with these did play. |
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|
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 check for complexion dwells, |
|
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. |
|
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, |
|
And to his robbery had annexed 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. |
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|
Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long, |
|
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might? |
|
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song, |
|
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light? |
|
Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem, |
|
In gentle numbers time so idly spent, |
|
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem, |
|
And gives thy pen both skill and argument. |
|
Rise resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey, |
|
If time have any wrinkle graven there, |
|
If any, be a satire to decay, |
|
And make time's spoils despised everywhere. |
|
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life, |
|
So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife. |
|
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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, |
|
'Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed, |
|
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay: |
|
But best is best, if never intermixed'? |
|
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb? |
|
Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee, |
|
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb: |
|
And to be praised of ages yet to be. |
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Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how, |
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To make him seem long hence, as he shows now. |
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My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming, |
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I love not less, though less the show appear, |
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That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming, |
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The owner's tongue doth publish every where. |
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Our love was new, and then but in the spring, |
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When I was wont to greet it with my lays, |
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As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, |
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And stops her pipe in growth of riper days: |
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Not that the summer is less pleasant now |
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Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, |
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But that wild music burthens every bough, |
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And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. |
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Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue: |
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Because I would not dull you with my song. |
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Alack what poverty my muse brings forth, |
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That having such a scope to show her pride, |
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The argument all bare is of more worth |
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Than when it hath my added praise beside. |
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O blame me not if I no more can write! |
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Look in your glass and there appears a face, |
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That over-goes my blunt invention quite, |
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Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace. |
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Were it not sinful then striving to mend, |
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To mar the subject that before was well? |
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For to no other pass my verses tend, |
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Than of your graces and your gifts to tell. |
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And more, much more than in my verse can sit, |
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Your own glass shows you, when you look in it. |
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To me fair friend you never can be old, |
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For as you were when first your eye I eyed, |
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Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold, |
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Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, |
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Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned, |
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In process of the seasons have I seen, |
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Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned, |
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Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green. |
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Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand, |
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Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived, |
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So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand |
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Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived. |
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For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred, |
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Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead. |
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Let not my love be called idolatry, |
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Nor my beloved as an idol show, |
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Since all alike my songs and praises be |
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To one, of one, still such, and ever so. |
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Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, |
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Still constant in a wondrous excellence, |
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Therefore my verse to constancy confined, |
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One thing expressing, leaves out difference. |
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Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument, |
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Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words, |
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And in this change is my invention spent, |
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Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords. |
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Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone. |
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Which three till now, never kept seat in one. |
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When in the chronicle of wasted time, |
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I see descriptions of the fairest wights, |
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And beauty making beautiful old rhyme, |
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In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights, |
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Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, |
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Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, |
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I see their antique pen would have expressed, |
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Even such a beauty as you master now. |
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So all their praises are but prophecies |
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Of this our time, all you prefiguring, |
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And for they looked but with divining eyes, |
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They had not skill enough your worth to sing: |
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For we which now behold these present days, |
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Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. |
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Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul, |
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Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come, |
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Can yet the lease of my true love control, |
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Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. |
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The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured, |
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And the sad augurs mock their own presage, |
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Incertainties now crown themselves assured, |
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And peace proclaims olives of endless age. |
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Now with the drops of this most balmy time, |
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My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes, |
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Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme, |
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While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes. |
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And thou in this shalt find thy monument, |
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When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. |
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What's in the brain that ink may character, |
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Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit, |
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What's new to speak, what now to register, |
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That may express my love, or thy dear merit? |
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Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine, |
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I must each day say o'er the very same, |
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Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, |
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Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name. |
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So that eternal love in love's fresh case, |
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Weighs not the dust and injury of age, |
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Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, |
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But makes antiquity for aye his page, |
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Finding the first conceit of love there bred, |
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Where time and outward form would show it dead. |
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O never say that I was false of heart, |
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Though absence seemed my flame to qualify, |
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As easy might I from my self depart, |
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As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie: |
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That is my home of love, if I have ranged, |
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Like him that travels I return again, |
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Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, |
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So that my self bring water for my stain, |
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Never believe though in my nature reigned, |
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All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, |
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That it could so preposterously be stained, |
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To leave for nothing all thy sum of good: |
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For nothing this wide universe I call, |
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Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all. |
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Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there, |
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And made my self a motley to the view, |
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Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, |
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Made old offences of affections new. |
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Most true it is, that I have looked on truth |
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Askance and strangely: but by all above, |
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These blenches gave my heart another youth, |
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And worse essays proved thee my best of love. |
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Now all is done, have what shall have no end, |
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Mine appetite I never more will grind |
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On newer proof, to try an older friend, |
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A god in love, to whom I am confined. |
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Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, |
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Even to thy pure and most most loving breast. |
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O for my sake do you with Fortune chide, |
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The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, |
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That did not better for my life provide, |
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Than public means which public manners breeds. |
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Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, |
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And almost thence my nature is subdued |
|
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand: |
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Pity me then, and wish I were renewed, |
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Whilst like a willing patient I will drink, |
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Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection, |
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No bitterness that I will bitter think, |
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Nor double penance to correct correction. |
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Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye, |
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Even that your pity is enough to cure me. |
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Your love and pity doth th' impression fill, |
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Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow, |
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For what care I who calls me well or ill, |
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So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow? |
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You are my all the world, and I must strive, |
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To know my shames and praises from your tongue, |
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None else to me, nor I to none alive, |
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That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong. |
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In so profound abysm I throw all care |
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Of others' voices, that my adder's sense, |
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To critic and to flatterer stopped are: |
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Mark how with my neglect I do dispense. |
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You are so strongly in my purpose bred, |
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That all the world besides methinks are dead. |
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Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind, |
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And that which governs me to go about, |
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Doth part his function, and is partly blind, |
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Seems seeing, but effectually is out: |
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For it no form delivers to the heart |
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Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch, |
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Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, |
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Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch: |
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For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight, |
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The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature, |
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The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night: |
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The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature. |
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Incapable of more, replete with you, |
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My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue. |
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Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you |
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Drink up the monarch's plague this flattery? |
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Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true, |
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And that your love taught it this alchemy? |
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To make of monsters, and things indigest, |
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Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, |
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Creating every bad a perfect best |
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As fast as objects to his beams assemble: |
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O 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing, |
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And my great mind most kingly drinks it up, |
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Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, |
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And to his palate doth prepare the cup. |
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If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin, |
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That mine eye loves it and doth first begin. |
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Those lines that I before have writ do lie, |
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Even those that said I could not love you dearer, |
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Yet then my judgment knew no reason why, |
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My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer, |
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But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents |
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Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings, |
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Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, |
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Divert strong minds to the course of alt'ring things: |
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Alas why fearing of time's tyranny, |
|
Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,' |
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When I was certain o'er incertainty, |
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Crowning the present, doubting of the rest? |
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Love is a babe, then might I not say so |
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To give full growth to that which still doth grow. |
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Let me not to the marriage of true minds |
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Admit impediments, love is not love |
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Which alters when it alteration finds, |
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Or bends with the remover to remove. |
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O no, it is an ever-fixed mark |
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That looks on tempests and is never shaken; |
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It is the star to every wand'ring bark, |
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Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. |
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Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks |
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Within his bending sickle's compass come, |
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Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, |
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But bears it out even to the edge of doom: |
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If this be error and upon me proved, |
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I never writ, nor no man ever loved. |
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Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all, |
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Wherein I should your great deserts repay, |
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Forgot upon your dearest love to call, |
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Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day, |
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That I have frequent been with unknown minds, |
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And given to time your own dear-purchased right, |
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That I have hoisted sail to all the winds |
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Which should transport me farthest from your sight. |
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Book both my wilfulness and errors down, |
|
And on just proof surmise, accumulate, |
|
Bring me within the level of your frown, |
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But shoot not at me in your wakened hate: |
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Since my appeal says I did strive to prove |
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The constancy and virtue of your love. |
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Like as to make our appetite more keen |
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With eager compounds we our palate urge, |
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As to prevent our maladies unseen, |
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We sicken to shun sickness when we purge. |
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Even so being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness, |
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To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding; |
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And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness, |
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To be diseased ere that there was true needing. |
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Thus policy in love t' anticipate |
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The ills that were not, grew to faults assured, |
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And brought to medicine a healthful state |
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Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured. |
|
But thence I learn and find the lesson true, |
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Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you. |
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What potions have I drunk of Siren tears |
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Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within, |
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Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, |
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Still losing when I saw my self to win! |
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What wretched errors hath my heart committed, |
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Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never! |
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How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted |
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In the distraction of this madding fever! |
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O benefit of ill, now I find true |
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That better is, by evil still made better. |
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And ruined love when it is built anew |
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Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. |
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So I return rebuked to my content, |
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And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent. |
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That you were once unkind befriends me now, |
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And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, |
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Needs must I under my transgression bow, |
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Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel. |
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For if you were by my unkindness shaken |
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As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time, |
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And I a tyrant have no leisure taken |
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To weigh how once I suffered in your crime. |
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O that our night of woe might have remembered |
|
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits, |
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And soon to you, as you to me then tendered |
|
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits! |
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But that your trespass now becomes a fee, |
|
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me. |
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'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed, |
|
When not to be, receives reproach of being, |
|
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed, |
|
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing. |
|
For why should others' false adulterate eyes |
|
Give salutation to my sportive blood? |
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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, |
|
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. |
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Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain |
|
Full charactered 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 |
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Have faculty by nature to subsist, |
|
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part |
|
Of thee, thy record never can be missed: |
|
That poor retention 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. |
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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: |
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This I do vow and this shall ever be, |
|
I will be true despite thy scythe and thee. |
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If my dear love were but the child of state, |
|
It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered, |
|
As subject to time's love or to time's hate, |
|
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered. |
|
No it was builded far from accident, |
|
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls |
|
Under the blow of thralled discontent, |
|
Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls: |
|
It fears not policy that heretic, |
|
Which works on leases of short-numbered hours, |
|
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. |
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Were't aught to me I bore the canopy, |
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With my extern the outward honouring, |
|
Or laid great bases for eternity, |
|
Which proves 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; 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, |
|
Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art, |
|
But mutual render, only me for thee. |
|
Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul |
|
When most impeached, stands least in thy control. |
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O thou my lovely boy who in thy power, |
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Dost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour: |
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Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st, |
|
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st. |
|
If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack) |
|
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! |
|
Her audit (though delayed) answered must be, |
|
And her quietus is to render thee. |
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|
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 slandered with a bastard shame, |
|
For since each hand hath put on nature's power, |
|
Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face, |
|
Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower, |
|
But is profaned, 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. |
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How oft when thou, my music, music play'st, |
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Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds |
|
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st |
|
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, |
|
Do I envy those jacks that nimble 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 thy fingers walk with gentle gait, |
|
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. |
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|
Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame |
|
Is lust in action, and till action, lust |
|
Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody full of blame, |
|
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, |
|
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight, |
|
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had |
|
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait, |
|
On purpose laid to make the taker mad. |
|
Mad in pursuit and in possession so, |
|
Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme, |
|
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe, |
|
Before a joy proposed behind a dream. |
|
All this the world well knows yet none knows well, |
|
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. |
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|
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 damasked, red and white, |
|
But no such roses see I in her cheeks, |
|
And in some perfumes is there more delight, |
|
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. |
|
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know, |
|
That music 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 belied with false compare. |
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|
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, |
|
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel; |
|
For well thou know'st to my dear doting 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, |
|
Although I swear it to my self alone. |
|
And to be sure that is not false I swear, |
|
A thousand groans but thinking on thy face, |
|
One on another's neck do witness bear |
|
Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place. |
|
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds, |
|
And thence this slander as I think proceeds. |
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Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me, |
|
Knowing thy heart torment 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: |
|
O 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. |
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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 sweet'st friend must be? |
|
Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken, |
|
And my next self thou harder hast engrossed, |
|
Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken, |
|
A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed: |
|
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 gaol. |
|
And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee, |
|
Perforce am thine and all that is in me. |
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So now I have confessed that he is thine, |
|
And I my self am mortgaged to thy will, |
|
My self I'll forfeit, so that other mine, |
|
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still: |
|
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, |
|
For thou art covetous, and he is kind, |
|
He learned but surety-like to write for me, |
|
Under that bond that him as fist doth bind. |
|
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, |
|
Thou usurer that put'st forth all to use, |
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And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake, |
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So him I lose through my unkind abuse. |
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Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me, |
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He pays the whole, and yet am I not free. |
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Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will, |
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And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus, |
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More than enough am I that vex thee still, |
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To thy sweet will making addition thus. |
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Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious, |
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Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? |
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Shall will in others seem right gracious, |
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And in my will no fair acceptance shine? |
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The sea all water, yet receives rain still, |
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And in abundance addeth to his store, |
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So thou being rich in will add to thy will |
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One will of mine to make thy large will more. |
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Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill, |
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Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.' |
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If thy soul check thee that I come so near, |
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Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will', |
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And will thy soul knows is admitted there, |
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Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil. |
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'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love, |
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Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one, |
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In things of great receipt with case we prove, |
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Among a number one is reckoned none. |
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Then in the number let me pass untold, |
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Though in thy store's account I one must be, |
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For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold, |
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That nothing me, a something sweet to thee. |
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Make but my name thy love, and love that still, |
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And then thou lov'st me for my name is Will. |
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Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes, |
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That they behold and see not what they see? |
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They know what beauty is, see where it lies, |
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Yet what the best is, take the worst to be. |
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If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks, |
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Be anchored in the bay where all men ride, |
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Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks, |
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Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied? |
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Why should my heart think that a several plot, |
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Which my heart knows the wide world's common place? |
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Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not |
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To put fair truth upon so foul a face? |
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In things right true my heart and eyes have erred, |
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And to this false plague are they now transferred. |
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When my love swears that she is made of truth, |
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I do believe her though I know she lies, |
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That she might think me some untutored youth, |
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Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. |
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Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, |
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Although she knows my days are past the best, |
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Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue, |
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On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed: |
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But wherefore says she not she is unjust? |
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And wherefore say not I that I am old? |
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O love's best habit is in seeming trust, |
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And age in love, loves not to have years told. |
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Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, |
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And in our faults by lies we flattered be. |
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O call not me to justify the wrong, |
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That thy unkindness lays upon my heart, |
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Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue, |
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Use power with power, and slay me not by art, |
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Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight, |
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Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside, |
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What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might |
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Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide? |
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Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows, |
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Her pretty looks have been mine enemies, |
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And therefore from my face she turns my foes, |
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That they elsewhere might dart their injuries: |
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Yet do not so, but since I am near slain, |
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Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain. |
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Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press |
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My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain: |
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Lest sorrow lend me words and words express, |
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The manner of my pity-wanting pain. |
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If I might teach thee wit better it were, |
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Though not to love, yet love to tell me so, |
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As testy sick men when their deaths be near, |
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No news but health from their physicians know. |
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For if I should despair I should grow mad, |
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And in my madness might speak ill of thee, |
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Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, |
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Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. |
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That I may not be so, nor thou belied, |
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Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide. |
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In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, |
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For they in thee a thousand errors note, |
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But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise, |
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Who in despite of view is pleased to dote. |
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Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted, |
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Nor tender feeling to base touches prone, |
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Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited |
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To any sensual feast with thee alone: |
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But my five wits, nor my five senses can |
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Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee, |
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Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man, |
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Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be: |
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Only my plague thus far I count my gain, |
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That she that makes me sin, awards me pain. |
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Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, |
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Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving, |
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O but with mine, compare thou thine own state, |
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And thou shalt find it merits not reproving, |
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Or if it do, not from those lips of thine, |
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That have profaned their scarlet ornaments, |
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And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine, |
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Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents. |
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Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those, |
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Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee, |
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Root pity in thy heart that when it grows, |
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Thy pity may deserve to pitied be. |
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If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, |
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By self-example mayst thou be denied. |
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Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch, |
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One of her feathered creatures broke away, |
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Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch |
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In pursuit of the thing she would have stay: |
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Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase, |
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Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent, |
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To follow that which flies before her face: |
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Not prizing her poor infant's discontent; |
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So run'st thou after that which flies from thee, |
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Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind, |
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But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me: |
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And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind. |
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So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will, |
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If thou turn back and my loud crying still. |
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Two loves I have of comfort and despair, |
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Which like two spirits do suggest me still, |
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The better angel is a man right fair: |
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The worser spirit a woman coloured ill. |
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To win me soon to hell my female evil, |
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Tempteth my better angel from my side, |
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And would corrupt my saint to be a devil: |
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Wooing his purity with her foul pride. |
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And whether that my angel be turned fiend, |
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Suspect I may, yet not directly tell, |
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But being both from me both to each friend, |
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I guess one angel in another's hell. |
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Yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt, |
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Till my bad angel fire my good one out. |
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Those lips that Love's own hand did make, |
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Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate', |
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To me that languished for her sake: |
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But when she saw my woeful state, |
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Straight in her heart did mercy come, |
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Chiding that tongue that ever sweet, |
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Was used in giving gentle doom: |
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And taught it thus anew to greet: |
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'I hate' she altered with an end, |
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That followed it as gentle day, |
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Doth follow night who like a fiend |
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From heaven to hell is flown away. |
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'I hate', from hate away she threw, |
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And saved my life saying 'not you'. |
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Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth, |
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My sinful earth these rebel powers array, |
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Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth |
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Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? |
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Why so large cost having so short a lease, |
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Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? |
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Shall worms inheritors of this excess |
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Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end? |
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Then soul live thou upon thy servant's loss, |
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And let that pine to aggravate thy store; |
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Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; |
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Within be fed, without be rich no more, |
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So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men, |
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And death once dead, there's no more dying then. |
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My love is as a fever longing still, |
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For that which longer nurseth the disease, |
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Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, |
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Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please: |
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My reason the physician to my love, |
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Angry that his prescriptions are not kept |
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Hath left me, and I desperate now approve, |
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Desire is death, which physic did except. |
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Past cure I am, now reason is past care, |
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And frantic-mad with evermore unrest, |
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My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are, |
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At random from the truth vainly expressed. |
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For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, |
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Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. |
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O me! what eyes hath love put in my head, |
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Which have no correspondence with true sight, |
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Or if they have, where is my judgment fled, |
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That censures falsely what they see aright? |
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If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, |
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What means the world to say it is not so? |
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If it be not, then love doth well denote, |
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Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no, |
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How can it? O how can love's eye be true, |
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That is so vexed with watching and with tears? |
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No marvel then though I mistake my view, |
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The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears. |
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O cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind, |
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Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find. |
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Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not, |
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When I against my self with thee partake? |
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Do I not think on thee when I forgot |
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Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake? |
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Who hateth thee that I do call my friend, |
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On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon, |
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Nay if thou lour'st on me do I not spend |
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Revenge upon my self with present moan? |
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What merit do I in my self respect, |
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That is so proud thy service to despise, |
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When all my best doth worship thy defect, |
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Commanded by the motion of thine eyes? |
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But love hate on for now I know thy mind, |
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Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind. |
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O from what power hast thou this powerful might, |
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With insufficiency my heart to sway, |
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To make me give the lie to my true sight, |
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And swear that brightness doth not grace the day? |
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Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, |
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That in the very refuse of thy deeds, |
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There is such strength and warrantise of skill, |
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That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds? |
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Who taught thee how to make me love thee more, |
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The more I hear and see just cause of hate? |
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O though I love what others do abhor, |
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With others thou shouldst not abhor my state. |
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If thy unworthiness raised love in me, |
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More worthy I to be beloved of thee. |
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Love is too young to know what conscience is, |
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Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? |
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Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss, |
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Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove. |
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For thou betraying me, I do betray |
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My nobler part to my gross body's treason, |
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My soul doth tell my body that he may, |
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Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason, |
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But rising at thy name doth point out thee, |
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As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride, |
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He is contented thy poor drudge to be, |
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To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side. |
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No want of conscience hold it that I call, |
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Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall. |
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In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn, |
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But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing, |
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In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn, |
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In vowing new hate after new love bearing: |
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But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee, |
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When I break twenty? I am perjured most, |
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For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee: |
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And all my honest faith in thee is lost. |
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For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness: |
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Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy, |
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And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness, |
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Or made them swear against the thing they see. |
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For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I, |
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To swear against the truth so foul a be. |
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Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep, |
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A maid of Dian's this advantage found, |
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And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep |
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In a cold valley-fountain of that ground: |
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Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love, |
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A dateless lively heat still to endure, |
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And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove, |
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Against strange maladies a sovereign cure: |
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But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired, |
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The boy for trial needs would touch my breast, |
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I sick withal the help of bath desired, |
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And thither hied a sad distempered guest. |
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But found no cure, the bath for my help lies, |
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Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes. |
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The little Love-god lying once asleep, |
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Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, |
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Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep, |
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Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand, |
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The fairest votary took up that fire, |
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Which many legions of true hearts had warmed, |
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And so the general of hot desire, |
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Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed. |
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This brand she quenched in a cool well by, |
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Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual, |
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Growing a bath and healthful remedy, |
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For men discased, but I my mistress' thrall, |
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Came there for cure and this by that I prove, |
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Love's fire heats water, water cools not love. |
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THE END |