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gold complexion dimmā€™d,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or natureā€™s changing course untrimmā€™d:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owā€™st,

Nor shall death brag thou wanderā€™st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growā€™st,

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 

XIX

 

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lionā€™s paws,

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tigerā€™s jaws,

And burn the long-livā€™d phoenix, in her blood;

Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,

And do whateā€™er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,

To the wide world and all her fading sweets;

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:

O! carve not with thy hours my loveā€™s fair brow,

Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;

Him in thy course untainted do allow

For beautyā€™s pattern to succeeding men.

Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,

My love shall in my verse ever live young.

 

XX

 

A womanā€™s face with natureā€™s own hand painted,

Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;

A womanā€™s gentle heart, but not acquainted

With shifting change, as is false womenā€™s fashion:

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue all ā€˜huesā€™ in his controlling,

Which steals menā€™s eyes and womenā€™s souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created;

Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated,

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

But since she prickā€™d thee out for womenā€™s pleasure,

Mine be thy love and thy loveā€™s use their treasure.

 

XXI

 

So is it not with me as with that Muse,

Stirrā€™d by a painted beauty to his verse,

Who heaven itself for ornament doth use

And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,

Making a couplement of proud compareā€™

With sun and moon, with earth and seaā€™s rich gems,

With Aprilā€™s first-born flowers, and all things rare,

That heavenā€™s air in this huge rondure hems.

O! let me, true in love, but truly write,

And then believe me, my love is as fair

As any motherā€™s child, though not so bright

As those gold candles fixā€™d in heavenā€™s air:

Let them say more that like of hearsay well;

I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

 

XXII

 

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,

So long as youth and thou are of one date;

But when in thee timeā€™s furrows I behold,

Then look I death my days should expiate.

For all that beauty that doth cover thee,

Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,

Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:

How can I then be elder than thou art?

O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary

As I, not for myself, but for thee will;

Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary

As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,

Thou gavā€™st me thine not to give back again.

 

XXIII

 

As an unperfect actor on the stage,

Who with his fear is put beside his part,

Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,

Whose strengthā€™s abundance weakens his own heart;

So I, for fear of trust, forget to say

The perfect ceremony of loveā€™s rite,

And in mine own loveā€™s strength seem to decay,

Oā€™erchargā€™d with burthen of mine own loveā€™s might.

O! let my looks be then the eloquence

And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,

Who plead for love, and look for recompense,

More than that tongue that more hath more expressā€™d.

O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:

To hear with eyes belongs to loveā€™s fine wit.

 

XXIV

 

Mine eye hath playā€™d the painter and hath stellā€™d,

Thy beautyā€™s form in table of my heart;

My body is the frame wherein ā€˜tis held,

And perspective it is best painterā€™s art.

For through the painter must you see his skill,

To find where your true image picturā€™d lies,

Which in my bosomā€™s shop is hanging still,

That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:

Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun

Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,

They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

 

XXV

 

Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars

Unlookā€™d for joy in that I honour most.

Great princesā€™ favourites their fair leaves spread

But as the marigold at the sunā€™s eye,

And in themselves their pride lies buried,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foilā€™d,

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toilā€™d:

Then happy I, that love and am belovā€™d,

Where I may not remove nor be removā€™d.

 

XXVI

 

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,

To thee I send this written embassage,

To witness duty, not to show my wit:

Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine

May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,

But that I hope some good conceit of thine

In thy soulā€™s thought, all naked, will bestow it:

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,

Points on me graciously with fair aspect,

And puts apparel on my tatterā€™d loving,

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:

Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;

Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

 

XXVII

 

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,

The dear respose for limbs with travel tirā€™d;

But then begins a journey in my head

To work my mind, when bodyā€™s workā€™s expired:

For then my thoughtsā€”from far where I abideā€”

Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,

Looking on darkness which the blind do see:

Save that my soulā€™s imaginary sight

Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,

Which, like a jewel (hung in ghastly night,

Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.

Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,

For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

 

XXVIII

 

How can I then return in happy plight,

That am debarreā€™d the benefit of rest?

When dayā€™s oppression is not easā€™d by night,

But day by night and night by day oppressā€™d,

And each, though enemies to eitherā€™s reign,

Do in consent shake hands to torture me,

The one by toil, the other to complain

How far I toil, still farther off from thee.

I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,

And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:

So flatter I the swart-complexionā€™d night,

When sparkling stars twire not thou gildā€™st the even.

But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,

And night doth nightly make griefā€™s length seem stronger.

 

XXIX

 

When in disgrace with fortune and menā€™s eyes

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featurā€™d like him, like him with friends possessā€™d,

Desiring this manā€™s art, and that manā€™s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,

Haply I think on thee,ā€” and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heavenā€™s gate;

For thy sweet love rememberā€™d such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

 

XXX

 

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear timeā€™s waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in deathā€™s dateless night,

And weep afresh loveā€™s long since cancellā€™d woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanishā€™d sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell oā€™er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restorā€™d and sorrows end.

 

XXXI

 

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,

Which I by lacking have supposed dead;

And there reigns Love, and all Loveā€™s loving parts,

And all those friends which I thought buried.

How many a holy and obsequious tear

Hath dear religious love stolā€™n from mine eye,

As interest of the dead, which now appear

But things removā€™d that hidden in thee lie!

Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,

Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,

Who all their parts of me to thee did give,

That due of many now is thine alone:

Their images I lovā€™d, I view in thee,

And thouā€”all theyā€”hast all the all of me.

 

XXXII

 

If thou survive my well-contented day,

When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover

And shalt by fortune once more re-survey

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,

Compare them with the bettā€™ring of the time,

And though they be outstrippā€™d by every pen,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,

Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:

ā€˜Had my friendā€™s Muse grown with this growing age,

A dearer birth than this his love had brought,

To march in ranks of better equipage:

But since he died and poets better prove,

Theirs for their style Iā€™ll read, his for his loveā€™.

 

XXXIII

 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide,

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:

Even so my sun one early morn did shine,

With all triumphant splendour on my brow;

But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,

The region cloud hath maskā€™d him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain when heavenā€™s sun staineth.

 

XXXIV

 

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,

And make me travel forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds oā€™ertake me in my way,

Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?

ā€˜Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak,

That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;

Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:

The offenderā€™s sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offenceā€™s cross.

Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,

And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

 

XXXV

 

No more be grievā€™d at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:

Clouds and eclipses stain

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