Thus is his cheeke the map of daies out-worne,
When beauty liv'd and dy'd as flowers do now,
Before these bastard signes of faire were borne,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow:
Before the goulden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchers were shorne away,
To live a second life on second head,
Ere beauties dead fleece made another gay:
In him those holy antique howers are seene,
Without all ornament, it selfe and true,
Making no summer of an others greene,
Robbing no old to dresse his beautie new,
  And him as for a map doth Nature store,
  To show false Art what beautie was of yore.
Those parts of thee that the worlds eye doth view,
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:
All tongues (the voice of soules) give thee that end,
Vttring bare truth, even so as foes Commend.
Their outward thus with outward praise is crownd,
But those same tongues that give thee so thine owne,
In other accents doe this praise confound
By seeing farther then the eye hath showne.
They looke into the beautie of thy mind,
And that in guesse they measure by thy deeds,
Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)
To thy faire flower adde the ranke smell of weeds,
  But why thy odor matcheth not thy show,
  The soyle is this, that thou doest common grow.

Injurious Time. [Sonnet LX / Sonnet LXIII / Sonnet LXIV / Sonnet LXV / Sonnet LXVI]
Like as the waves make towards the pibled shore,
So doe our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toile all forwards do contend.
Nativitie once in the maine of light.
Crawles to maturitie, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses gainst his glory fight,
And time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfixe the florish set on youth,
And delves the paralels in beauties brow,
Feedes on the rarities of natures truth,
And nothing stands but for his Sithe to mow,
  And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
  Praysing thy worth, dispight his cruell hand.
Against my love shall be as I am now
With times injurious hand chrusht and ore-worne,
When houres have dreind his blood and fild his brow
With lines and wrincles, when his youthfull morne
Hath travaild on to Ages steepie night,
And all those beauties whereof now he's King
Are vanishing, or vanisht out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his Spring.
For such a time doe I now fortifie
Against confounding Ages cruell knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet loves beautie, though my lovers life.
  His beautie shall in these blacke lines be seene,
  And they shall live, and he in them still greene.

When I have seene by times fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworne buried age,
When sometime loftie towers I see downe rased,
And brasle eternall slave to mortall rage.
When I have seene the hungry Ocean gaine
Advantage on the Kingdome of the shoare,
And the firme soile win of the watry maine,
Increasing store with losse, and losse with store.
When I have seene such interchange of state,
Or state it selfe confounded, to decay,
Ruine 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 weepe to have, that which it feares to loose.
Since brasse, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundlesse sea,
But sad mortallity ore-swaies their power,
How with this rage shall beautie hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger then a flower?
O how shall sommers hungry breath hold out,
Against the wrackfull siedge of battring dayes,
When rocks impregnable are not so stoute,
Nor gates of steele so strong but time decayes?
O fearefull meditation, where a lack
Shall times best Iewell from times chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foote back,
Or who his spoile or beautie can forbid?
  O none, unlesse this miracle have might,
  That in black inck my love may still shine bright.
Tyr'd with all these for restfull death I cry,
As to behold desart a begger borne,
And needie Nothing trimd in jollitie,
And purest faith unhappily forsworne,

And gilded honour shamefully misplast,
And maiden vertue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And Art made tung-tide by authoritie,
And Folly (Doctor-like) controuling skill,
And simple-Truth miscalde Simplicitie,
And captive-good attending Captaine ill.
  Tyr'd with all these, from these would I be gone,
  Save that to dye, I leave my love alone. True Admiration. [Sonnet LIII / Sonnet LIV]
What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shaddowes on you tend?
Since every one, hath every one, one shade,
And you but one, can every shaddow lend:
Discribe Adonis and the counterfet,
Is poorely imitated after you,
On Hellens cheeke all art of beautie set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speake of the spring, and foyzen of the yeare,
The one doth shaddow of your beautie show,
The other as your bountie doth appeare,
And you in every blessed shape we know.
  In all externall grace you have some part,
  But you like none, none you for constant heart.
O how much more doth beautie beautious seeme,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give,
The Rose lookes faire, but fairer we it deeme
For that sweet odor, which doth in it live:

The Canker-bloomes have full as deepe a die,
As the perfumed tincture of the Roses,
Hang on such thornes, and play as wantonly,
When summers breath their masked buds discloses:
But for their vertue onely in their show,
They live unmoov'd, and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet Roses doe not so,
Of their sweet deathes, are sweetest odors made:
  And so of you, beautious and lovely youth,
  When that shall vade, by verse distils your truth. The force of love. [Sonnet LVII / Sonnet LVIII]
Being your slave what should I doe but tend,
Vpon the houres, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to doe till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world without end houre,
Whilst I (my soveraigne) watch the clock for you,
Nor thinke the bitternesse of absence sowre,
When you have bid your servant once adue.
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,
Where you may be, or your affaires suppose,
But like a sad slave stay and thinke of nought
Save where you are, how happy you make those.
  So true a foole is love, that in your Will,
  (Though you doe any thing) he thinkes no ill.
That God forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought controule your times of pleasure,

Or at your hand th'account of houres to crave,
Being your vassaile bound to stay your leisure.
Oh let me suffer (being at your beck)
Th'imprison'd absence of your libertie,
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 selfe may priviledge your time
To what you will, to you it doth belong,
Your selfe to pardon of selfe-doing crime.
  I am to waite, though waiting so be hell,
  Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well. The beautie of Nature. [Sonnet LIX]
If there be nothing new, but that which is,
Hath beene before, how are our braines beguild,
Which labouring for invention beare amisse
The second burthen of a former child?
O that record could with a back-ward looke,
Even of five hundreth courses of the Sunne,
Show me your image in some antique booke,
Since mine at first in character was done.
That I might see what the old world could say,
To this composed wonder of your frame,
Whether we are mended, or where better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
  Oh sure I am the wits of former dayes,
  To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

Loves crueltie. [Sonnet I / Sonnet II / Sonnet III]
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauties Rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heire might beare his memory:
But thou contracted to thine owne bright eyes,
Feedst thy lights flame with selfe substantiall fewell,
Making a famine where aboundance lies,
Thy selfe thy foe, to thy sweet selfe too cruell:
Thou that art now the worlds fresh ornament,
And only herauld to the gaudy spring,
Within thine owne bud buriest thy content,
And tender chorle makst wast in niggarding:
  Pitty the world, or else this glutton be,
  To eate the worlds due, by the grave and thee.
When fortie Winters shall beseige thy brow,
And digge deep trenches in thy beauties field,
Thy youthes proud livery so gaz'd on now,
Will be a totter'd weed of small worth held:
Then being askt, where all thy beautie lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty dayes;
To say within thine owne deepe sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftlesse praise.
How much more praise deserv'd thy beauties use,
If thou couldst answere this faire child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse.
Prooving his beautie by succession thine.
  This were to be new made when thou art old,
  And see thy blood warme when thou feel'st it cold.

Looke in thy glasse and tell the face thou vewest,
Now is the time that face should forme an other,
Whose fresh repaine if now thou not renewest,
Thou doo'st beguile the world, unblesse some mother.
For where is she so faire whose un-eard wombe
Disdaines the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tombe,
Of his selfe love to stop posteritie?
Thou art thy mothers glasse and she in thee
Calls backe the lovely Aprill of her prime,
So thou through windowes of thine age shalt see,
Dispight of wrinkles this thy goulded time.
  But if thou live remember not to be,
  Die single and thine Image dies with thee. Youthfull glory. [Sonnet XIII / Sonnet XIV / Sonnet XV]
O that you were your selfe, but love you are
No longer yours, then you your selfe here live,
Against this comming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination, then you were
Your selfe again after your selfes decease,
When your sweet issue your sweete forme should beare.
Who lets so faire a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winters day
And barren rage of deaths eternall cold?

  O none but unthrifts, dare my love you know,
  You had a Father, let your Son say so.
Not from the stars doe I my judgement plucke,
And yet me thinkes I have Astronomy,
But not to tell of good, or evill lucke,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons qualitie,
Nor can I fortune to breefe minuts tell;
Pointing to each his thunder, raine and winde,
Or say with Princes if it shall goe well
By oft predict that I in heaven finde.
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And constant stars in them I read such art
As truth and beautie shall together thrive
If from thy selfe, to store thou wouldst convert:
  Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
  Thy end is Truths and Beauties doome and date.
When I consider every thing that growes
Holds in perfection but a little moment.
That this huge stage presenteth nought but showes
Whereon the Stars in secret influence comment.
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheared and checkt even by the selfe-same skie:
Vaunt in their youthfull sap, at height decrease,
And were their brave state out of memory.
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wastfull time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night,
  And all in war with Time for love of you
  As he takes from you, I ingraft you new.

Good Admonition. [Sonnet XVI / Sonnet XVII]
Bvt wherefore doe not you a mightier way
Make warre upon this bloudy tirant time?
And fortifie your selfe in your decay
With meanes more blessed then my barren rime?
Now stand you on the top of happy houres,
And many maiden gardens yet unset,
With vertuous wish would beare your living flowers,
Much liker then your painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life repaire
Which this (Times pensell or my pupill pen)
Neither in inward worth nor outward faire
Can make you live your selfe in eyes of men,
  To give away your selfe, keeps your selfe still,
  And you must live drawne by your owne sweet skill.
Who will beleeve my verse in time to come
If it were fild with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knowes it is but as a tombe
Which hides your life, and showes not halfe your parts:
If I could write the beautie of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say this Poet lies,
Such heavenly touches nere toucht earthly faces.
So should my papers (yellowed with their age)
Be scorn'd, like old men of lesse truth then tongue,
And your true rights be termd a Poets rage,
And stretched miter of an Antique song.
But were some childe of yours alive that time
You should live twise in it, and in my rime.

Quicke prevention. [Sonnet VII]
Loe in the Orient when the gracious light,
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new appearing sight,
Serving with lookes his sacred majestie,
And having climb'd the steepe up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortall lookes adore his beautie still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
But when from high-most pitch with weary care,
Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,
The eyes (fore dutious) now converted are
From his low tract and looke another way:
  So thou, thy selfe out-going in thy noon:
  Vnlok'd on diest unlesse thou get a sonne. Magazine of beautie. [Sonnet IV / Sonnet V / Sonnet VI]
Vnthriftie lovelinesse why dost thou spend,
Vpon thy selfe thy beauties legacy?
Natures bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
Then beautious niggard why doost thou abuse,
The bountious largesse given thee to give?
Profitles Vsurer, why dost thou use
So great a summe of summes yet can'st not live?

For having traffike with thy selfe alone,
Thou of thy selfe thy sweet selfe dost deceive,
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable Audit can'st thou leave?
  Thy unus'd beautie must be tomb'd with thee,
  Which used lives th'executor to be.
Those howres that with gentle worke did frame,
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tirants to the very same,
And that unfaire which fairely doth excell:
For never resting time leads Summer on,
To hidious winter and confounds him there,
Sap checkt with frost and lustie leav's quite gon.
Beautie ore-snow'd and barenesse every where,
Then were not summers distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glasse,
Beauties effect with beautie were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
  But flowers distil'd though they with winter meete,
  Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.
Then let not winters wragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer ere thou be distil'd:
Make sweet some viall; treasure thou some place,
With beauties treasure ere it be selfe kil'd:
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing lone;
That's for thy selfe to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
Ten times thy selfe were happier then thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee,
Then what could death doe if thou should'st depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not selfe-wild for thou art much too faire,
To be deaths conquest and make wormes thine heire. An invitation to Marriage. [Sonnet VIII / Sonnet IX / Sonnet X / Sonnet XI / Sonnet XII]
Mvsick to heare, why hear'st thou musick sadly,
Sweets with sweets warre not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receavst not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well tuned sounds,
By unions married do offend thine eare,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singlenesse the parts that thou should'st beare:
Marke how one string sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutuall ordering;
Resembling sier, and child, and happy mother,
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
  Whose speechlesse song being many, seeming one,
  Sings this to thee thou single wilt prove none.
It is for feare to wet a widdowes eye
That thou consum'st thy selfe in single life?
Ah! if thou issulesse shalt hap to die,
The world will waile thee like a makelesse wife,
The world will be thy widdow and still weepe,
That thou no forme of thee hast left behind,
When every privat widdow well may keepe,
By childrens eyes, her husbands shape in minde:
Looke what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoyes it

But beauties waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unus'd the user so destroyes it:
  No love toward others in that bosome sits
  That on himselfe such murdrous shame commits.
For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any
Who for thy selfe art so unprovident
Grant if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many,
But that thou none lov'st is most evident:
For thou art so possest with murdrous hate,
That gainst thy selfe thou stickst not to conspire,
Seeking that beautious roofe to ruinate
Which to repaire should be thy chiefe desire:
O change thy thought, that I may change my minde.
Shall hate be fairer log'd then gentle love?
Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,
Or to thy selfe at least kind hearted prove,
  Make thee another selfe for love of me,
  That beautie still may live in thine or thee.
As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st,
In one of thine, from that which thou departest,
And that fresh blood which yongly thou bestow'st,
Thou maist call thine, when thou from youth convertest,
Herein lives wisedome, beautie, and increase,
Without this folly, age, and cold decay,
If all were minded so, the times should cease,
And threescore yeares would make the world away:
Let those whom nature hath not made for store,
Harsh, featurelesse, and rude, barrenly perish,
Looke whom she best indow'd, she gave the more;
Which bountious gift thou shouldst in bountie cherrish,
  She carv'd thee for her seale; and ment thereby,
  Thou shouldst print more, not let that coppy die.

When I doe count the clock that tels the time,
And see the brave day sunck in hidious night,
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls or silver'd ore with white:
When loftie trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopie the herd
And Sommers greene all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the beare with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beautie doe I question make
That thou among the wasts of time must goe,
Since sweets and beauties doe themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow,
  And nothing gainst Times sithe can make defence
  Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence. False beleefe. [Sonnet CXXXVIII]
When my Love sweares that she is made of truth,
I doe beleeve her (though I know she lies)
That she might thinke me some untutor'd youth,
Vnskilfull in the worlds false forgeries.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinkes me young.
Although I know my yeares be past the best:
I smiling. credit her false speaking tongue,
Outfacing faults in Love, with loves ill rest.
But wherefore sayes my love that shee is young?
And wherefore say not I, that I am old?
O, Loves best habit is a soothing tongue,
And Age (in love) loves not to have yeares told.

Therefore Ile lie with Love, and Love with me,
Since that our faults in Love thus smother'd be. A Temptation. [Sonnet CXLIV]
Two loves I have, of Comfort, and Despaire,
That like two Spirits, doe suggest me still:
My better Angell is a Man (right faire)
My worser spirit a Woman (colour'd ill.)
To winne me soone to hell, my Female evill
Tempteth my better Angell from my side,
And would corrupt my Saint to be a Divell,
Wooing his puritie, with her faire pride.
And whether that my Angell be turnd feend,
Suspect I may (yet not directly tell:)
For being both to me: both to each friend,
I ghesse one Angell in anothers hell.
  The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt,
  Till my bad Angell fire my good one out. Fast and loose.
Did not the heavenly Rhetoricke of thine eye,
Gainst whom the world could not hold argument,
Perswade my heart to this false perjurie:
Vowes for thee broke deserve not punishment,

A woman I forswore: but I will proue
Thou being a Goddesse, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love,
Thy grace being gaind, cures all disgrace in me.
My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is.
Then thou faire Sun, that on this earth doth shine,
Exhale this vapour vow, in thee it is:
If broken, then it is no fault of mine.
  If by me broke what foole is not so wise
  To breake an Oath, to win a Paradise? True content. [Sonnet XXI]
So is it not with me as with that Muse,
Stird by a painted beautie to his verse,
Who heaven it selfe for ornament doth use,
And every faire with his faire doth reherse,
Making a cooplement of proud compare
With Sunne and Moone, with earth and seas rich gems:
With Aprills first borne flowers and all things rare,
That heavens ayre in this huge rondure hems,
O let me true in love but truly write,
And then beleeve me, my love is as faire,
As any mothers childe, though not so bright
As those gold candells fixt in heavens ayer:
  Let them say more that like of heare-say well,
  I will not prayse that purpose not to sell.

A bashfull Lover. [Sonnet XXIII]
As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his feare is put besides his part,
Or some fierce thing repleat with too much rage,
Whose strengths abundance, weakens his owne heart;
So I for feare of trust, forget to say,
The perfect ceremony of loves right,
And in mine owne loves strength seeme to decay,
Ore-charg'd with burthen of mine owne loves might,
O let my books be then the eloquence,
And domb presagers of my speaking brest,
Who pleade for love, and looke for recompence,
More then that tongue that more hath more exprest.
  O learne to read what silent love hath writ,
  To heare with eyes belongs to loves fine wit. Strong conceite. [Sonnet XXII]
My glasse shall not perswade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou art of one date,
But when in thee times sorrowes I behold,
Then looke I death my dayes should expiate.
For all that beautie that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemely rayment of my heart,
Which in thy brest doth live, as thine in me,
How can I then be elder then thou art?

O therefore love be of thy selfe so wary,
As I not for my selfe, but for thee will,
Bearing thy heart which I will keepe so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill,
  Presume not on thy heart when mine is slaine,
  Thou gav'st me thine not to give backe againe. A sweet provocation.
Sweet Cytheria, sitting by a Brooke,
With young Adonis, lovely, fresh and greene,
Did court the Lad with many a lovely looke,
Such lookes as none could looke but beauties Queene,
She told him stories, to delight his eares:
She show'd him favors, to allure his eye:
To win his heart, she toucht him here and there,
Touches so soft, still conquer chastitie.
But whether unripe yeares did want conceit,
Or he refus'd to take her figured proffer,
The tender nibler would not touch the bait,
But smile, and jest, at every gentle offer:
  Then fell she on her backe, faire Queene, and toward
  He rose and ran away, ah foole too froward. A constant vow.
If love make me forsworne, how shall I sweare to love?
O, never faith could hold, if not to beautie vowed:

Though to my selfe forsworne, to thee Ile constant prove,
Those thoughts to me like Okes, to thee like Osiers bowed,
Studdy his byas leaves, and makes his booke thine eyes,
Where all those pleasures lives, that Art can comprehend:
If knowledge be the marke, to know thee shall suffice:
Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend,
All ignorant that soule, that sees thee without wonder,
Which is to me some prayse, that I thy parts admire:
Thine eye Ioves lightning seemes, thy voyce his dreadfull thunder
Which (not to anger bent) is musick and sweet fire.
  Celestiall as thou art, O, doe not love that wrong:
  To sing heavens prayse, with such an earthly tongue. The Exchange. [Sonnet XX]
A womans face with natures owne hand painted,
Hast thou the Master Mistris of my passion,
A womans gentle heart but not acquainted
With shifting change as is false womens fashion,
An eye more bright then theirs, lesse false in rowling:
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,
A man in hew all Hews in his controuling,
Which steales mens eyes, and womens soules amazeth.
And for a woman went 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 prickt thee out for womens pleasure,
  Mine be thy love and thy loves use their treasure.

A disconsolation. [Sonnet XXVII / Sonnet XXVIII / Sonnet XIX]
Weary with toyle, I haste me to my bed,
The deare repose for lims with travaile tired,
But then begins a journey in my head
To worke my minde, when bodies work's expired.
For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keepe my drooping eye-lids open wide,
Looking on darkenesse which the blind doe see.
Save that my soules imaginary sight
Presents their shaddow to my sightlesse view,
Which like a jewell (hunge in gastly night)
Makes blacke night beautious and her old face new.
  Loe thus by day my lims, by night my mind,
  For thee, and for my selfe, no quiet finde.
How can I then returne in happy plight
That am debard the benefit of rest?
When dayes oppression is not eazd by night,
But day by night and night by day opprest.
And each (though enemies to others raigne)
Doe in consent shake hands to torture me,
The one by toyle, the other to complaine
How far I toyle, still farther off from thee.
I tell the Day to please him thou art bright,
And do'st him grace when clouds doe blot the heaven:
So flatter I the swart complexiond night,
When sparkling stars twire, not thou guil'st th'even.
  But day doth daily draw my sorrowes longer,
  And night doth nightly make greefes length seeme. stronger

When in disgrace with Fortune and mens eyes,
I all alone be weepe my out-cast state,
And trouble deafe heaven with my bootlesse cries,
And looke upon my selfe and curse my fate.
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possest,
Desiring this mans art, and that mans skope,
With what I most injoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my selfe almost despising,
Haply I thinke on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the Larke at breake of day arising)
From sullen earth sings himns at Heavens gate,
  For thy sweet love remembred such wealth brings,
  That then I scorne to change my state with Kings. Cruell Deceit.
Scarse had the Sunne dride up the deawy morne,
And scarse the herd gone to the hedge for shade:
When Cytherea (all in love forlorne)
A longing tariance for Adonis made
Vnder an Osyer growing by a brooke,
A brooke, where Adon us'd to coole his spleene:
Hot was the day, she hotter that did looke
For his approach, that often there had beene.
Anon he comes, and throwes his Mantle by,
And stood starke naked on the brookes greene brim:
The Sunne look't on the world with glorious eye,
Yet not so wistly, as this Queene on him:

He spying her, bounst in (whereas he stood)
Oh Iove (quoth she) why was not I a flood? The unconstant Lover.
Faire is my love, but not so faire as fickle,
Milde as a Dove, but neither true nor trustie,
Brighter then glasse, and yet as glasse is brittle,
Softer then wax, and yet as Iron rusty;
  A lilly pale, with damaske die to grace her,
  None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.
Her lips to mine how often hath she joyned,
Betweene each kisse her oathes of true love swearing:
How many tales to please me hath she coyned,
Dreading my love the losse thereof still fearing.
  Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,
  Her faith, her oathes, her teares, and all were jeastings.
She burnt with love, as straw with fire flameth,
She burnt out love, as soone as straw out burneth;
She fram'd the love, and yet she foyld the framing,
She bad love last, and yet she fell a turning.
  Was this a lover, or a Letcher whether?
  Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.

The benefit of Friendship. [Sonnet XXX / Sonnet XXXI / Sonnet XXXII]
When to the Sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lacke of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new waile my deare times waste:
Then can I drowne an eye (unus'd to flow)
For precious friends hid in deaths datelesse night,
And weepe a fresh loves long since canceld woe,
And moane th'expence of many a vanisht sight.
Then can I greeve at greevances fore gone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell ore
The sad account of fore-bemoned mone,
VVhich I new pay, as if not payd before.
  But if the while I thinke on thee (deare friend)
  All losses are restor'd, and sorrowes end.
Thy bosome is indeared with all hearts,
VVhich I by lacking have supposed dead,
And there raignes Love and all Loves loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious teare
Hath deare religious love stolne from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appeare,
But things remov'd that hidden in there lye.
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live.
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gon,
VVho all their parts of me to thee did give,
That due of many, now is thine alone,
  Their images I lov'd, I view in thee,
  And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.

If thou survive my well contented day,
When that churle death my bones with dust shall cover
And shalt by fortune once more re-survay:
These poore rude lines of thy deceased Lover:
Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,
And though they be out-stript by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rime,
Exceeded by the hight of happier men.
Oh then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,
Had my friends Muse growne with this growing age,
A dearer birth then this his love had brought
To march in ranckes of better equipage:
  But since he dyed and Poets better prove,
  Theirs for their stile ile read, his for his love. Friendly concord.
If Musicke and sweet Poetrie agree,
As they must needs (the Sister and the brother)
Then must the love be great twixt thee and me,
Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other.
Dowland to thee is deare, whose heavenly touch
Vpon the Lute, doth ravish humane sense:
Spencer to me, whose deepe Conceit is such,
As passing all conceit, needs no defence.
Thou lov'st to heare the sweet melodious sound,
That Phœbus Lute (the Queene of Musicke) makes,
And I in deepe delight am chiefly drownd,
When as himselfe to singing he betakes.

  One God is God of both (as Poets faine)
  One Knight loves Both, and both in thee remaine. Inhumanitie.
Faire was the morne, when the faire Queene of Love,
Paler for sorrow then her milke white Dove,
For Adons sake, a youngster proud and wilde,
Her stand she takes upon a steepe up hill.
Anon Adonis comes with horne and hounds,
She silly Queene, with more then loves good will,
Forbad the boy he should not passe those grounds,
Once (quoth she) did I see a faire sweet youth
Here in these brakes, deepe wounded with a Boare,
Deepe in the thigh a spectacle of ruth,
See in my thigh (quoth she) here was the sore,
  She shewed hers, he saw more wounds then one,
  And blushing fled, and left her all alone. A congratulation. [Sonnet XXXVIII / Sonnet XXXIX / Sonnet XL]
How can my Muse want subject to invent
While thou dost breath that powr'st into my verse,
Thine owne sweet argument, too excellent,
For every vulgar paper to rehearse:
Oh give thy selfe the thankes if ought in me,
Worthy perusall stand against thy sight,

For who's so dumbe that cannot write to thee,
When thou thy selfe dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Then those old nine which rimers invocate,
And he that cals on thee, let him bring forth
Eternall numbers to out-live long date.
  If my slight Muse doe please these curious dayes,
  The paine be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
Oh how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine owne praise to mine owne selfe bring;
And what is't but mine owne when I praise thee,
Even for this, let us devided live,
And our deare love loose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give:
That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone:
Oh absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy soure leisure gave sweet leave,
To entertaine the time with thoughts of love,
VVhich time and thoughts so sweetly dost deceive.
  And that thou teachest how to make one twaine,
  By praysing him here who doth hence remaine.
Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,
What hast thou then more then thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:
Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,
But yet be blam'd, if thou this selfe deceavest
By wilfull taste of what thy selfe refusest.
I doe forgive thy robb'ry gentle theefe
Although thou steale thee all my povertie:

And yet love knowes it is a greater griefe
To beare loves wrong, then hates knowne injury.
  Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well showes,
  Kill me with spights yet we must not be foes Losse and gaine. [Sonnet XLI / Sonnet XLII]
Those pretty wrongs that libertie commits,
When I am sometimes absent from thy heart,
Thy beautie, and thy yeares full well befits,
For still temptation followes where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be wonne,
Beautious thou art, therefore to be assailed.
And when a woman wooes, what womans sonne,
Will sourely leave her till he have prevailed.
Aye me, but yet thou mightst my seate forbeare,
And chide thy beautie, and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their ryot even there
Where thou art forc't to break a twofold truth:
  Hers by thy beautie tempting her to thee,
  Thine by thy beautie being false to me.
That thou hast her it is not all my griefe,
And yet it may be sayd I lov'd her dearely,
That she hath thee is of my wayling cheefe,
A losse in love that touches me more neerely.
Loving offendors thus I will excuse yee,
Thou doest love her, because thou knowst I love her,
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her,

If I loose thee, my losse is my loves gaine,
And loosing her, my friend hath found that losse;
Both finde each other, and I loose both twaine,
And both for my sake lay on me this crosse,
  But here's the joy, my friend and I are one,
  Sweet flattery, then shee loves but me alone. Foolish disdaine.
Venus with Adonis sitting by her,
Vnder a Mirtle shade began to wooe him,
She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,
And as he fell to her, she fell to him,
Even thus (quoth she) the warlike god embrac't me,
And then she clipt Adonis in her armes:
Even thus (quoth she) the warlike god unlac't me,
As if the boy should use like loving charmes:
Even thus (quoth she) he seized on my lippes,
And with her lips on his did act the seizure:
And as she fetched breath, away he skips,
And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure,
  Ah, that I had my Lady at this bay:
  To kisse and clip me till I run away. Ancient Antipothy.
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together,
Youth is full of pleasance, Age is full of care,

Youth like summer morne, Age like winter weather,
Youth like summer brave, Age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport, Ages breath is short,
Youth is nimble, Age is lame,
Youth is hot and bold, Age is weake and cold,
Youth is wild, and age is tame.
  Age I doe abhor thee, Youth I doe adore thee,
    O my love my love is young:
  Age I doe defie thee, Oh sweet Shepheard hie thee:
    For me thinks thou staies too long. Beauties valuation.
Beautie is but a vaine and doubtfull good,
A shining glosse, that vadeth suddainly,
A flower that dies, when first it gins to bud,
A brittle glasse, that's broken presently.
  A doubtfull good, a glosse, a glasse, a flower,
  Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an houre.
And as goods lost, are seld or never found,
As vaded glosse no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead, lie withered on the ground,
As broken glasse no symant can redresse.
  So beautie blemisht once, for ever lost,
  In spite of phisicke, painting, paine and cost.

Melancholy thoughts. [Sonnet XLIV / Sonnet XLV]
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way,
For then dispight of space I would be brought,
From limits farre remote, where thou doost stay,
No matter then although my foote did stand
Vpon the farthest earth remoov'd from thee,
For nimble thought can jumpe both sea and land,
As soone as thinke the place where he would be.
But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought
To leape large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend, times leasure with my mone.
  Receiving naughts by elements so sloe,
  But heavy teares, badges of eithers woe.
The other two, slight ayre, and purging fire,
Are both with thee, where ever I abide,
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present absent with swift motion slide,
For when these quicker Elements are gone
In tender Embassie of love to thee,
My life being made of foure, with two alone,
Sinkes downe to death, opprest with melancholy.
Vntill lives composition be recured,
By those swift messengers return'd from thee,
Who even but now come backe againe assured,
Of their faire health, recounting it to me.
  This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,
  I send them back againe and straight grow sad.

Loves Losse.
Sweet Rose, faire flower, untimely pluckt, soone vaded,
Plukt in the bud, and vaded in the spring:
Bright Orient pearle, alacke too timely shaded,
Faire creature, kild too soone by Deaths sharpe sting:
  Like a greene plumbe that hangs upon a tree:
  And fals (through winde) before the fall should be.
I weepe for thee, and yet no cause I have,
For why; thou lefts me nothing in thy Will,
And yet thou lefts me more then I did crave,
For why: I craved nothing of thee still:
  O yes (deare friend) I pardon crave of thee,
  Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me. Loves Releefe. [Sonnet XXXIII / Sonnet XXXIV / Sonnet XXXV]
Fvll many a glorious morning have I seene,
Flatter the mountaine tops with soveraigne eye,
Kissing with golden face the meddowes greene;
Gilding pale streames with heavenly alcumy:
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,
With ougly rack on his celestiall face,
And from the forlorne world his visage hide
Stealing unseene to west with this disgrace:
Even so my Sunne one early morne did shine,
With all triumphant splender on my brow,

But out alack, he was but one houre mine,
The region cloude hath mask'd him from me now.
  Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,
  Suns of the world may staine, when heavens sun stayneth,
Why didst thou promise such a beautious day,
And make me travaile forth without my cloake,
To let base clouds oretake me in my way,
Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke.
Tis not enough that through the cloude thou breake,
To dry the raine on my storme-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speake,
That heales the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give phisicke to my griefe,
Though thou repent, yet I have still the losse,
Th'offenders sorrow lends but weake reliefe
To him that beares the strong offences losse.
  Ah but those teares are pearle which thy love sheeds,
  And they are rich, and ransome all ill deeds.
No more be greev'd at that which thou hast done,
Roses have thornes, and silver fountaines mud,
Clouds and eclipses staine both Moone and Sunne,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespas with compare,
My selfe corrupting salving thy amisse,
Excusing their sins more then their sins are:
For to thy sensuall fault I bring in sence,
Thy adverse partie is thy Advocate,
And gainst my selfe a lawfull plea commence,
Such civill war is in my love and hate,
  That I an accessary needs must be,
  To that sweet theefe which sourely robs from me.

Vnanimitie. [Sonnet XXXVI / Sonnet XXXVII]
Let me confesse that we two must be twaine.
Although our undevided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remaine,
Without thy helpe, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a seperable spight,
Which though it alter not loves sole effect,
Yet doth it steale sweet houres from loves delight:
I may not ever-more acknowledge thee,
Least my bewailed guilt should doe thee shame,
Nor thou with publike kindnesse honour me,
Vnlesse thou take that honour from thy name:
  But doe not so, I love thee in such sort,
  As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
As a decrepit father takes delight,
To see his active child doe deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortunes dearest spight
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
For whether beautie, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more
Intitled in their parts, do crowned sit,
I make my love ingrafted to this store:
So then I am not lame, poore, nor dispis'd,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,
That I in thy aboundance an suffic'd,
And by a part of all thy glory live:
  Looke what is best, that best I wish in thee,
  This wish I have, then ten times happy me.

Loath to depart.
Good night, good rest, ah neither be my share,
She bad good night, that kept my rest away,
And daft me to a cabben hangde with care:
To descant on the doubts of my decay,
  Farewell (quoth she) and come againe to morrow:
  Fare well I could not, for I supt with sorrow.
Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile,
In scorne or friendship, nill I conster whether:
'Tmay be she joyd to jeast at my exile.
'Tmay be againe, to make me wander thither.
  Wander (a word) for shadowes like my selfe,
  As take the paine, but cannot plucke the pelfe.
Lord how mine eyes throw gazes to the East,
My heart doth charge the watch, the morning rise
Doth scite each moving sence from idle rest,
Not daring trust the office of mine eies.
  While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and marke,
  And wish her layes were tuned like the Larke.
For she doth welcome day-light with her ditty,
And drives away darke dreaming night:
The night so packt, I post unto my pretty,
Hart hath his hope, and eies their wished sight,
  Sorrow chang'd to solace, and solace mixt with sorrow,
  For why, she sight, and bad me come to morrow.
Were I with her, the night would post too soone,
But now are minutes added to the houres:
To spite me now, each minute seemes an houre,
Yet not for me, shine Sunne to succour flowers.

  Pack night peepe day, good day of night now borrow,
  Short night to night, and length thy selfe to morrow. A Master-peece. [Sonnet XXIV]
Mine eye hath play'd the Painter and hath steeld,
Thy beauties forme in table of my heart,
My body is the frame wherein ti's held,
And perspective it is best Painters Art.
For through the Painter must you see his skill,
To finde where your true Image pictur'd lies,
Which in my bosomes shop is hanging still,
That hath his windowes glazed with thine eyes:
Now see what good-turnes eyes for eyes have done,
Mine eyes have drawne thy shape, and thine for me
Are windowes to my brest, where through the Sun
Delights to peepe, to gaze therein on thee
  Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art
  They draw but what they see, know not the heart. Happinesse in content. [Sonnet XXV]
Let those who are in favour with their stars,
Of publike honour and proud titles bost,
Whilst I whom fortune of such tryumph bars
Vnlookt for joy in that I honour most;

Great Princes favorites their faire leaves spread,
But as the Marigold at the suns eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frowne they in their glory die.
The painefull warrier famosed for worth,
After a thousand victories once foild,
Is from the booke of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toild;
  Then happy I that love and am beloved
  Where I may not remove, nor be removed. A dutifull Message. [Sonnet XXVI]
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my dutie strongly knit;
To thee I send this written ambassage
To witnesse dutie, not to shew my wit.
Dutie so great, which wit so poore as mine
May make seeme bare, in wanting words to shew it;
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soules thought (all naked) will bestow it:
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
Points on me graciously with faire aspect,
And puts apparrall on my tottered loving,
To show me worthy of their sweet respect,
  Then may I dare to boast how I doe love thee,
  Till then, not show my head where thou maist prove me.

Goe and come quickly. [Sonnet L / Sonnet LI]
How heavie doe I journey on the way,
When what I seeke (my weary travels end)
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
Thus farre the miles are measurde from thy friend.
The beast that beares me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to beare that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider lov'd not speed being made from thee:
The bloody spurre cannot provoke him on,
That some-times anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a grone,
More sharpe to me then spurring to his side,
  For that same groane doth put this in my mind,
  My greefe lies onward and my joy behind.
Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,
Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,
From where thou art, why should I hast me thence,
Till I returne of posting is no neede.
O what excuse will my poore beast then find,
When swift extremitie can seeme but slow,
Then should I spurre though mounted on the wind,
In winged speed no motion shall I know,
Then can no horse with my desire keepe pace,
Therefore desire (of perfects 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 wilfull slow,
  Towards thee ile run, and give him leave to goe.

Two faithfull friends. [Sonnet XLVI / Sonnet XLVII]
Mine eye and heart are at a mortall warre,
How to devide the conquest of thy sight,
Mine eye, my heart their pictures sight would barre,
My heart, mine eye the freedome of that right,
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lye,
(A closet never pearst with christall eyes)
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And sayes in him their faire appearance lies.
To side this title is impannelled
A quest of thoughts, all tennants to the heart,
And by their verdict is determined
The cleere eyes moyitie, and the deare hearts part.
  As thus, mine eyes due is their outward part
  And my hearts right, their inward love of heart.
Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is tooke,
And each doth good turnes now unto the other,
When that mine eye is famisht for a looke,
Or heart in love with sighes himselfe doth smother;
With my loves picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart:
Another time mine eye is my hearts guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.
So either by thy picture or my love,
Thy selfe away, are present still with me,
For thou not farther then my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee.
  Or if they sleepe, thy picture in my sight
  Awakes my heart, to hearts and eyes delight.

Carelesse neglect. [Sonnet XLVIII]
How carefull was I when I tooke my way,
Each trifle under truest barres to thrust,
That to my use it might unused stay
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust?
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest griefe,
Thou best of deerest, and mine onely care,
Art left the prey of every vulgar theefe.
Thee have I not lockt up in any chest,
Save where thou art not, though I feele thou art,
Within the gentle closure of my brest,
From whence at pleasure thou maist come and part,
  And even thence thou wilt be stolne I feare,
  For truth prooves theevish for a prize so deare. Stoute resolution. [Sonnet XLIX]
Against that time (if ever that time come)
When I shall see thee frowne on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost summe,
Cald to that audite by advis'd respects,
Against that time when thou shalt strangely passe,
And scarcely greete me with that sunne thine eye,
When love converted from the thing it was
Shall reasons finde of setled gravitie.

Against that time doe I in sconce me here
Within the knowledge of mine owne desart,
And this my hand, against my selfe upreare,
To guard the lawfull reasons on thy part,
  To leave poore me, thou hast the strength of lawes,
  Since why to love, I can alledge no cause. A Duell.
It was a Lordings daughter,
The fairest one of three
That liked of her master, as well as well might be,
Till looking on an Englishman,
The fairest eye could see,
  Her fancy fell a turning.
Long was the combat doubtfull,
That love with love did fight,
To leave the master lovelesse, or kill the gallant Knight,
To put in practise eyther, alas it was a spite
  Vnto the silly damsell.
But one must be refused, more mickle was the paine,
That nothing could be used, to turne them both to gaine,
For of the two the trusty knight was
Wounded with disdaine,
  Alas she could not helpe it.
Thus art with armes contending, was victor of the day,
Which by a gift of learning, did beare the maid away,
Then lullaby the learned man hath got the Lady gay,
  For now my song is ended.

Love-sicke.
On a day (alacke the day)
Love whose month was ever May,
Spied a blossome passing faire,
Playing in the wanton ayre;
Through the velvet leaves the wind
All unseene gan passage find,
That the lover (sicke to death)
Wisht himselfe the heavens breath,
Ayre (quoth he) thy cheeks may blow,
Ayre, would I might triumph so:
But (alas) my hand hath sworne,
Nere to plucke thee from thy throne,
Vow (alacke) for youth unmeet,
Youth, so apt to pluck a sweet,
Thou for whom Iove would sweare,
Iuno but an Ethiope were,
And deny himselfe for Iove
Turning mortall for thy Love. Loves labour lost.
My flocks feede not, my Ewes breed not,
My Rams speed not, all is amis:
Love is dying, Faiths defying,
  Harts denying, causer of this.

All my merry Iigges are quite forgot,
All my Ladies love is lost (god wot)
Where her faith was firmely fixt in love,
There a nay is plac't without remove.
  One silly crosse, wrought all my losse,
  O frowning fortune cursed fickle dame,
  For now I see, inconstancy,
  More in women then in men remaine.
In blacke mourne I, all feares scorne I,
Love hath forlorne me living in thrall:
Heart is bleeding, all helpe needing,
O cruell speeding, fraughted with gall.
My shepheards pipe can sound no deale,
My Weathers bell rings dolefull knell,
My curtaile Dogge that wont to have plaid,
Plaies not at all but seemes afraid.
  With sighes so deepe, procures to weepe,
  In howling wise, to see my dolefull plight,
  How sighes resound through heartlesse ground
  Like a thousand vanquisht men in bloudie fight.
Cleare wells spring not, sweet birds sing not,
Greene plants bring not forth their die,
Herds stands weeping, flockes all sleeping,
Nimphes blacke peeping fearefully:
All our pleasure knowne to us poore swaines:
All our merry meetings on the plaines,
All our evening sport from us is fled,
All our love is lost, for love is dead,
  Farewell sweet love thy like nere was,
  For a sweet content the cause of all my woe,
  Poore Coridon must live alone,
  Other helpe for him I see that there is none.

Wholesome counsell.
When as thine eye hath chose the Dame,
    And stalde the deare that thou shouldst strike,
Let reason rule things worthy blame,
As well as fancy (partly all might)
  Take counsell of some wiser head,
  Neither too young, nor yet unwed,
And when thou com'st thy tale to tell,
Smooth not thy tongue with filed talke,
Least she some subtill practise smell,
A Cripple soone can finde a halt,
  But plainely say thou lovst her well,
  And set her person forth to sale.
What though her frowning browes be bent
Her cloudy lookes will calme ere night,
And then too late she will repent,
That thus dissembled her delight.
  And twice desire ere it be day,
  That which with scorne she put away.
What though she strive to try her strength,
And ban and braule, and say thee nay:
Her feeble force will yeeld at length,
When craft hath taught her thus to say:
  Had women beene so strong as men
  In faith you had not had it then.
And to her will frame all thy wayes,
Spare not to spend, and chiefly there,
Where thy desart may merit praise
By ringing in thy Ladies eare,

  The strongest castle, tower and towne,
  The golden bullet beats it downe.
Serve alwayes with assured trust,
And in thy sute be humble true,
Vnlesse thy Lady prove unjust,
Prease never thou to chuse a new:
  When time shall serve, be thou not slacke,
  To proffer though she put it back.
The wiles and guiles that women worke,
Dissembled with an outward shew:
The tricks and toyes that in them lurke,
The Cock that treads them shall not know;
  Have you not heard it said full oft,
  A Womans nay doth stand for nought.
Thinke women still to strive with men,
To sinne and never for to Saint,
There is no heaven (by holy then)
When time with age shall them attaint,
  Were kisses all the joyes in bed,
  One woman would another wed.
But soft enough, too much I feare,
Least that my mistresse heare my song,
She will not sticke to round me on th'ere,
To teach my tongue to be so long:
  Yet will she blush, here be it said,
  To heare her secrets so bewraid.

Sat fuisse. [Sonnet LXII]
Sinne of selfe-love possesseth all mine eye,
And all my soule, and all my every part;
And for this sinne there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Me thinkes no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account,
And for my selfe mine owne worth doe define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glasse shewes me my selfe indeed
Beated and chopt with tand antiquitie,
Mine owne selfe love quite contrary I read
Selfe, so selfe loving were iniquitie,
  'Tis thee (my selfe) that for my selfe I praise,
  Painting my age with beautie of thy dayes. A living monument. [Sonnet LV]
Not marble, nor the guilded monument,
Of Princes shall out-live this powerfull rime,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Then unswept stone, besmeer'd with sluttish time.
When wastefull warre shall Statues overturne,
And broyles roote out the worke of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor warres quicke fire shall burne:
The living record of your memory.

Gainst death, and all oblivious emnitie
Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still finde roome,
Even in the eyes of all posteritie
That were this world out to the ending doome.
  So till the judgement that your selfe arise,
  You live in this, and dwell in lovers eyes. Familiaritie breeds contempt. [Sonnet LII]
So am I as the rich whose blessed key,
Can bring him to his sweet uplocked treasure,
The which he will not ev'ry hower survay,
For blunting the fine point of seldome pleasure,
Therefore are feasts so sollemne and so rare,
Since seldome comming in the long yeare set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captaine Iewells in the carconet.
So is the time that keepes you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some speciall instant speciall blest,
By new unfoulding his imprison'd pride.
  Blessed are you whose worthinesse gives scope,
  Being had to tryumph, being lackt to hope. Patiens Armatus. [Sonnet LXI]
Is it thy will, thy Image should keepe open
My heavie eyelids to the weary night?

Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadowes like to thee doe mocke my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So farre from home into my deeds to pry,
To finde out shames and idle houres in me,
The scope and tenure of thy Iealousie?
O no, thy love though much, is not so great,
It is my love that keepes mine eye awake,
Mine owne true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watch-man ever for thy sake.
  For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake else-where,
  From me farre of, with others all too neare. A Valediction. [Sonnet LXXI / Sonnet LXXII / Sonnet LXXIV]
No longer mourne for me when I am dead,
Then you shall heare the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vildest wormes to dwell:
Nay if you read this line, remember not,
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe,
O if (I say) you looke upon this verse,
When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,
Doe not so much as my poore name reherse;
But let your love even with my life decay.
  Least the wise world should looke into your mone,
  And mocke you with me after I am gone.

O Least the world should taske you to recite,
What merit liv'd in me that you should loue
After my death (deare love) forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
Vnlesse you would devise some vertuous lye,
To doe more for me then mine owne desert,
And hange more prayse upon deceased I,
Then nigard truth would willingly impart:
O least your true love may seeme false in this,
That you for love speake well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.
  For I am shamd by that which I bring forth,
  And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
But be contented when that fell arest,
Without all bayle shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memoriall still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review,
The very part was consecrate to thee,
The earth can have but earth, which is his due,
My spirit is thine the better part of me,
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of wormes, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretches knife,
To base of thee to be remembred.
  The worth of that, is that which it containes,
  And that is this, and this with thee remaines.

Nil magnis Invidia. [Sonnet LXX]
That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect,
For slanders marke was ever yet the faire,
The ornament of beautie is suspect,
A Crow that flies in heavens sweetest ayre.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve,
Their worth the greater being woo'd of time,
For Canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present'st a pure unstayned prime.
Thou hast past by the ambush of young dayes,
Either not assaild, or victor being charg'd,
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tye up envy, evermore inlarged,
  If some suspect of ill maske not thy show,
  Then thou alone kingdomes of hearts shouldst owe. Love-sicke. [Sonnet LXXX / Sonnet LXXXI]
O how I faint when I of you doe write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the prayse thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tide speaking of your fame.
But since your worth (wide as the Ocean is)
The humble as the proudest saile doth beare,
My sawsie barke (inferior farre to his)
On your broad maine doth wilfully appeare.

Your shallowest helpe will hold me up a floate,
Whilst he upon your soundlesse deepe doth ride,
Or (being wrackt) I am a worthlesse boate,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride.
  Then if he thrive and I be cast away
  The worst was this, my love was my decay,
Or I shall live your Epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortall life shall have,
Though I (once gone) to all the world must dye,
The earth can yeeld me but a common grave,
When you intombed in mens eyes shall lie,
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall ore-read,
And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse.
When all the breathers of this world are dead,
  You still shall live (such vertue hath my Pen)
  Where breathe most breaths, even in the mouths of men. The Picture of true love. [Sonnet CXVI]
Let me not to the marriage of true mindes
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration findes,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever fixed marke
That lookes on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the starre to every wandring barke,
Whose worths unknowne, although his hight be taken!
Lov's not Times foole, though rosie lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickles compasse come,
Love alters not with his breefe houres and weekes,
But beares it out even to the edge of doome:
  If this be errour and upon me proved,
  I never writ, nor no man ever loved. In prayse of his Love. [Sonnet LXXXII / Sonnet LXXXIII / Sonnet LXXXIV / Sonnet LXXXV]
I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint ore-looke
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their faire subject, blessing every booke.
Thou art as faire in knowledge as in hew,
Finding thy worth a limmit past my praise,
And therefore art inforc'd to seeke anew,
Some fresher stampe of the time bettering dayes.
And doe so love, yet when they have devis'd,
What strained touches Rhetorick can lend,
Thou truly faire, wert truly simpathizde,
In true plaine words, by thy true telling friend.
  And their grosse painting might be better us'd,
  Where cheekes need blood, in thee it is abus'd.
I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your faire no painting set,
I found (or thought I found) you did exceede,
The barren tender of a Poets debt:

And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you your selfe being extant well might show,
How farre a moderne quill doth come to short,
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow,
This silence of my sinne you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory being dumbe,
For I impaire not beautie being mute,
When others would give life, and bring a tombe.
  There lives more life in one of your faire eyes,
  Then both your Poets can in praise devise.
Who is it that sayes most, which can say more,
Then this rich praise, that you alone, art you,
In whose confine immured is the store,
Which should example where your equall grew,
Leane penurie 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 coppy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so cleere,
And such a counter-part shall fame his writ,
Making his still admired every where.
  You to your beautious blessings adde a curse,
  Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.
My tongue tide Muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise richly compil'd,
Reserve their Character with golden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.
I thinke good thoughts, whilst other write good words,
And like unlettered clerke still crie Amen,
To every Himne that able spirit affords,
In polisht forme of well refined pen.

Hearing you praisd, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,
And to the most of praise adde something more,
But that is in my thought, whose love to you
(Though words come hind-most) holds his ranke before,
  Then others, for the breath of words respect,
  Me for my dumbe thoughts, speaking in effect. A Resignation. [Sonnet LXXXVI / Sonnet LXXXVII]
Was it the proud full saile of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of (all to precious) you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my braine inhearse,
Making their tombe the wombe wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,
Above a mortall pitch, that struck me dead?
No neither he, nor his compiers by night
Giving him ayde, my verse astonished.
He nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast,
I was not sicke of any feare from thence.
  But when your countenance fild up his line,
  Then lackt I matter, that infeebled mine.
Farewell thou art too deare for my possessing,
And like enough thou knowst thy estimate,
The Charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how doe I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this faire guift in me is wanting,
And so my pattent backe againe is swerving.
Thy selfe thou gav'st, thy owne worth then not knowing,
Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking,
So thy great guift upon misprision growing,
Comes home againe, on better judgement making.
  Thus have I had thee as a dreame doth flatter,
  In sleepe a King, but waking no such matter. Sympathizing love.
As it fell upon a Day,
In the merry Moneth of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade,
Which a grove of Myrtles made,
Beasts did leape, and Birds did sing,
Trees did grow, and Plants did spring:
Every thing did banish mone,
Save the Nightingale alone,
She (poore Bird) as all forlorne,
Leand her brest up-till a thorne,
And there sung the dolefulst Dittie,
That to heare it was great Pittie,
Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry
Teru, Teru, by and by:
That to heare her so complaine,
Scarse I could from teares refraine:
For her griefes so lovely showne,
Made me thinke upon mine owne.

Ah (thought I) thou mournst in vaine,
None takes pitty on thy paine:
Senslesse trees, they cannot heare thee,
Ruthlesse Beares, they will not cheere thee,
King Paudion, he is dead:
All thy friends are lapt in Lead.
All thy fellow Birds doe sing,
Carelesse of thy sorrowing.
Whilst as fickle Fortune smild,
Thou and I, were both beguild,
Every one that flatters thee,
Is no friend in misery:
Words are easie, like the wind,
Faithfull friends are hard to finde:
Every man will be thy friend,
Whilst thou haste wherewith to spend:
But if store of Crownes be scant,
No man will supply thy want,
If that one be prodigall,
Bountifull they will him call:
And with such like flattering,
Pittie but he were a King.
If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will intice.
If to women he be bent,
They have at Commandement
But if Fortune once doe frowne,
Then farewell his great renowne
They that fawnd on him before,
Vse his company no more.
He that is thy friend indeede,
He will helpe thee in thy neede:

If thou sorrow, he will weepe:
If thou awake, he cannot sleepe:
Thus of every greefe, in heart
He, with thee, doth beare a part.
These are certaine signes, to know
Faithfull friend, from flatt'ring foe A request to his scornefull Love. [Sonnet LXXXVIII / Sonnet LXXXIX / Sonnet XC / Sonnet XCI]
When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of scorne,
Vpon thy side, against thy selfe Ile fight,
And prove thee vertuous, though thou art forsworne:
With mine owne weakenesse being best acquainted,
Vpon thy part I can set downe a story
Of faults conceald, wherein I am attainted:
That thou in loosing me, shall win much glory:
And I by this will be a gainer too,
Forbending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to my selfe I doe,
Doing thee vantage duble vantage me.
  Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
  That for thy right, my selfe will beare all wrong.
Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
And I will comment upon that offence,
Speake of my lamenesse, and I straight will hault:
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not (love) disgrace me halfe so ill,
To set a forme upon desired change,

As Ile my selfe disgrace, knowing thy will,
I will acquaintance strangle and looke strange:
Be absent from thy walkes and in my tongue,
Thy sweet belooved name no more shall dwell,
Least I (too much prophane) should do it wrong:
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
  For thee, against my selfe Ile vow debate,
  For I must nere love him whom thou dost hate.
Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,
Now while the world is bent my deeds to crosse,
Ioyne with the spight of fortune, make me bow,
And doe not drop in for an after losse:
Ah doe not, when my heart hath scapt this sorrow,
Come in the rereward of a conquered woe,
Give not a windy night a rainie morrow,
To linger out a purposd overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, doe not leave me last,
When other pettie griefes have done their spight,
But in the onset come, so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortunes might.
  And other straines of woe, which now seeme woe,
  Compar'd with losse of thee, will not seeme so.
Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their bodies force,
Some in their garments though new-fangled ill:
Some in their Hawkes and hounds, some in their Horse.
And every hnmour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it findes a joy above the rest,
But these particulers are not my measure,
All these I better in one generall best.
Thy love is better then high birth to me,
Richer then wealth, prouder then garments cost,

Of more delight then Hawkes or Horses be:
And having thee, of all mens pride I boast.
  Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,
  All this away, and me most wretched make. A Lovers affection though his Love prove unconstant. [Sonnet XCII / Sonnet XCIII / Sonnet XCIV / Sonnet XCV]
Bvt doe thy worst to steale thy selfe away,
For tearme of life thou art assured mine,
And life no longer then my love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to feare the worst of wrongs,
When in the least of them my life hath end,
I see, a better state to me belongs
Then that, which on my humour doth depend.
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant minde,
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,
Oh what a happy title doe I finde,
Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
  But whats so blessed faire that feares no blot,
  Thou maist be false, and yet I know it not.
So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband, so loves face
May still seeme love to me, though alter'd new:
Thy lookes with me, thy heart in other place.
For their can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,
In manies lookes, the false hearts history
Is writ in moods and frounes and wrinckles strange.

But heaven in thy creation did decree,
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,
What ere thy thoughts, or thy hearts workings be,
Thy lookes should nothing thence, but sweetnesse tell.
  How like Eves apple doth thy beautie grow,
  If thy sweet vertue answer not thy show.
They that have power to hurt, and will doe none,
That doe not doe the thing, they most doe show,
Who moving others, are themselves as stone,
Vnmooved, cold, and to temptation slow:
They rightly doe inherit heavens graces,
And husband natures riches from expence,
They are the Lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence:
The sommers flower is to the sommer sweet,
Though to it selfe, it onely live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meete,
The basest weed out-braves his dignitie:
  For sweetest things turne sowrest by their deeds,
  Lillies that fester, smell farre worse then weeds.
How sweete and lovely dost thou make the shame,
Which like a canker in the fragrant Rose,
Doth spot the beautie of thy budding name?
Oh in what sweets doest thou thy sinnes inclose?
That tongue that tells the story of thy dayes,
(Making lascivious comments on thy sport)
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,
Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.
Oh what a mansion have those vices got,
Which for their habitation choose out thee,
Where beauties vaile doth cover every blot,
And all things turnes to faire, that eyes can see!

  Take heede (deere heart) of this large priviledge,
  The hardest knife ill us'd doth loose his edge. Complaint for his Loves absence. [Sonnet XCVII / Sonnet XCVIII / Sonnet XCIX]
How like a Winter hath my absence beene
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting yeare?
What freezings have I felt, what darke daies seene?
What old Decembers barenesse every where?
And yet this time remov'd was sommers time,
The teeming Autumne big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widdowed wombes after their Lords decease:
Yet this aboundant issue seem'd to me,
But hope of Orphans, and un-fathered fruite,
For Sommer and his pleasures waite on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute.
  Or if they sing, tis with so dull a cheere,
  That leaves looke pale, dreading the Winters neare.
From you have I beene absent in the spring,
When proud pide Aprill (drest in all his trim)
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:
That heavie Saturne laught and leapt with him,
Yet not the laies of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hew,
Could make me any sommers story tell:
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the Lillies white,
Nor praise the deepe Vermillion in the Rose,

They were but sweete, but figures of delight:
Drawne after you, you patterne of all those.
  Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away,
  As with your shaddow I with these did play.
The forward violet thus did I chide,
Sweet theefe whence didst thou steale thy sweet that smels,
If not from my loves breath, the purple pride,
Which on thy soft cheeke for complexion dwells?
In my loves veines thou hast too grossely died,
The Lilly I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of Marjerom had stolne thy haire,
The Roses fearefully on thornes did stand,
Our blushing shame, another white dispaire:
A third nor red, nor white, had stolne of both,
And to his robbry had annext thy breath,
But for his theft in pride of all his growth,
A vengefull canker eate him up to death.
  More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
  But sweet, or colour it had stolne from thee. An invocation to his Muse. [Sonnet C / Sonnet CI]
Where art thou Muse that thou forgetst so long,
To speake of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spendst thou thy fury on some worthlesse song,
Darkning thy power to lend base subjects light.
Returne forgetfull Muse, and straight redeeme,
In gentle numbers time so idely spent,
Sing to the eare that doth thy laies esteeme,
And give thy pen both skill and argument.

Rise resty Muse, my loves sweet face survay,
If time have any wrincle graven there,
If any, be a Satire to decay,
And make times spoiles dispised every where.
  Give my love fame, faster then time wasts life,
  So thou prevenst his Sithe, and crooked knife.
Oh truant Muse what shall be thy amends,
For thy neglect of truth in beautie di'd?
But truth and beautie on my love depends:
So dost thou too, and therein dignifi'd:
Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,
Truth needs no collour with his collour fixt,
Beautie no pensell, beauties truth to lay:
But best is best, if never intermixt.
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumbe?
Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee,
To make her much out-live a gilded tombe:
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.
  Then doe thy office muse, I teach thee how,
  To make her seeme long hence, as she showes now. Constant affection. [Sonnet CIV / Sonnet CV / Sonnet CVI]
To me faire love you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyde,
Such seemes your beautie still: Three Winters cold,
Have from the forrests shooke three summers pride,
Three beautious springs to yellow Autumne turn'd,
In processe of the seasons have I seene,

Three Aprill perfumes in three hot Iunes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh which yet are greene.
Ah yet doth beautie like a Dyall hand,
Steale from his figure, and no place perceiv'd;
So your sweete hew, which me thinkes still doth stand
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceaved.
  For feare of which, heare this thou age unbred,
  Ere you were borne was beatties summer dead.
Let not my love be cal'd Idolatrie,
Nor my beloved as an Idoll show,
Since all alike my songs and prayses be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love to day, to morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence,
Therefore my verse to constancie confin'de,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
Faire, kinde, and true, is all my argument,
Faire, kinde and true, varrying to other words,
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three theames in one, which wondrous scope affords.
  Faire, kinde, and true, have often liv'd alone.
  Which three till now, never kept seate in one.
When in the Chronicle of wasted time,
I see discriptions of the fairest wights,
And beautie making beautifull old rime,
In praise of Ladies dead, and lovely Knights,
Then in the blazon of sweet beauties best,
Of hand, of foote, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique Pen would have exprest,
Even such a beautie as you master now.
So all their prayses are but prophesies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,

And for they look'd but with divining eyes,
They had not still enough your worth to sing:
  For we which now behold these present dayes,
  Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. Amazement. [Sonnet CII / Sonnet CIII]
My love is strengthned though more weake in seeming
I love not lesse, though lesse the show appeare,
That love is marchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,
The owners tongue doth publish every where.
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my laies,
As Philomel in Summers front doth sing,
And stops his pipe in growth of riper dayes:
Not that the Summer is lesse pleasant now
Then when her mournefull himmes did hush the night,
But that wild musicke burthens every bow,
And sweets growne common loose their deare delight.
  Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue:
  Because I would not dull you with my song.
Alack what povertie my Muse brings forth,
That having such a skope to show her pride,
The argument all bare, is of more worth,
Then when it hath my added praise beside.
Oh blame me not if I no more can write!
Looke in your glasse and there appeares a face,
That overgoes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.

Were it not sinfull then striving to mend,
To marre the subject that before was well,
For to no other passe my verses tend,
Then of your graces and your gifts to tell.
  And more, much more then in my verse can sit,
  Your owne glasse showes you, when you looke in it. A Lovers excuse for his long absence. [Sonnet CIX / Sonnet CX]
O never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to quallifie,
As easie might I from my selfe depart,
As from my soule which in thy brest doth lye:
That is my home of love, if I have rang'd,
Like him that travels I returne againe,
Iust to the time, not with the time exchang'd,
So that my selfe bring water for my staine,
Never beleeve though in my nature raign'd,
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stain'd,
To leave for nothing all thy summe of good:
  For nothing this wide Vniverse I call,
  Save thou my Rose, in it thou art my all.
Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made my selfe a motley to the view,
Gor'd mine owne thoughts, sold cheape what is most deare,
Made old offences of affections new.
Most true it is, that I have lookt on truth
Asconce and strangely: But by all above,

These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse assaies prou'd thee my best of love,
Now all is done, have what shall have no end,
Mine appetite I never more will grinde
On newer proofe, to trie an older friend,
A God in love, to whom I am confin'd.
  Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
  Even to thy pure and most most loving brest. A complaint. [Sonnet CXI / Sonnet CXII]
O for my sake doe you wish fortune chide,
The guiltie goddesse of my harmelesse deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
Then publick meanes which publicke manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdu'd
To what it workes in, like the Dyers hand,
Pitty me then, and wish I were renu'de,
Whilst like a willing patient I will drinke,
Potions of Eysell gainst my strong infection,
No bitternesse that I will bitter thinke,
Nor double pennance to correct correction.
  Pittie me then deare friend, and I assure yee,
  Even that your pittie is enough to cure me.
Your love and pittie doth th'impression fill,
Which vulgar scandall stampt upon my brow,
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you ore-greene my bad, my good alow?

You are my All the world, and I must strive,
To know my shames and prayses from your tongue,
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steel'd sence or changes right or wrong,
In so profound Abisme I throw all care
Of others voyces, that my Adders sence,
To cryttick and to flatterer stopped are:
Marke how with my neglect I doe dispence.
  You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
  That all the world besides me thinkes y'are dead. Selfe flattery of her beautie. [Sonnet CXIII / Sonnet CXIV / Sonnet CXV]
Since I left you, mine eye is in my minde,
And that which governes me to goe about,
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seemes seeing, but effectually is out:
For it no forme delivers to the heart
Of birds, or flower, or shape which it doth lack,
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his owne vision houlds what it doth catch:
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformedst creature,
The mountaine, or the sea, the day, or night:
The Crow, or Dove, it shapes them to your feature.
  Incapable of more repleat, with you,
  My most true minde thus maketh mine untrue.
Or whether doth my minde being crown'd with you
Drinke up the monarchs plague this flattery?

Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this Alcumie
To make of monsters, and things indigest,
Such cherubins as your sweet selfe resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best
As fast as objects to his beames assemble:
Oh tis the first, tis flattry in my seeing,
And my great mind most kindly drinkes it up,
Mine eye well knowes what with his gust is greeing,
And to his pallat doth prepare the cup.
  If it be poison'd, tis the lesser sinne,
  That mine eye loves it and doth first beginne.
Those lines that I before have writ doe lie,
Even those that said I could not love you deerer,
Yet then my judgement knew no reason why,
My most full flame should afterwards burne clearer.
But reckoning time, whose milliond accidents
Creepe in twixt vowes, and change decrees of Kings,
Tan sacred beautie, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to th'course of altring things:
Alas why fearing of times tiranny,
Might I not then say now I love you best,
When I was certaine ore in-certaintie,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest:
  Love is a Babe, then might I not say so
  To give full growth to that which still doth grow. Tryall of loves constancy. [Sonnet CXVII / Sonnet CXVIII / Sonnet CXIX]
Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,

Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds doe tie me day by day,
That I have frequent binne with unknowne minds,
And given to time your owne deare purchas'd right,
That I have hoysted saile to all the winds
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
Booke both my wilfulnesse and errour downe,
And on just proofe surmise, accumilate,
Bring me within the levell of your frowne,
But shoote not at me in your wakened hate:
  Since my appeale sayes I did strive to proove
  The constancy and vertue of your love.
Like as to make our appetites more keene
With eager compounds we our pallat urge,
As to prevent our malladies unseene,
We sicken to shun sicknesse when we purge.
Even so being full of your neare cloying sweetnesse,
To bitter sawces did I frame my feeding;
And sicke of wel-fare found a kinde of meetnesse,
To be diseas'd ere that there was true needing.
Thus pollicie in love t'anticipate
The ills that were, not grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthfull state
Which ranke of goodnesse would by ill be cured.
  But thence I learne and find the lesson true,
  Drugs poyson him that so fell sicke of you.
What potions have I drunke of Syren teares
Distil'd from Limbecks foule as hell within,
Applying feares to hopes, and hopes to feares,
Still loosing when I saw my selfe to win?
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought it selfe so blessed never?

How have mine eyes out of their Spheares beene fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever?
O benefit of ill, now I finde true
That better is, by evill still made better.
And ruin'd love when it is built anew
Growes fairer then at first, more strong, far greater.
  So I returne rebuke to my content,
  And gaine by ills thrice more then I have spent. A good construction of his Loves unkindenesse. [Sonnet CXX]
That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feele,
Needes must I under my transgression bow,
Vnlesse my Nerves were brasse or hammered steele.
For if you were by my unkindnesse shaken
As I by yours, y'have past a hell of Time,
And I a tyrant have no leasure taken
To waigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O that our night of woe might have remembred
My deepest sence, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soone to you, as you to me then tendred
The humble salve, which wounded bosomes fits!
  But that your trespasse now becomes a fee,
  Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransome me.

Errour in opinion. [Sonnet CXXI]
Tis better to be vile then 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 adulterat eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies;
Which in their wils count bad what I thinke good?
No, I am that I am, and they that levell
At my abuses, reckon up their owne,
I may be straight though they themselves be bevell
By their rancke thoughts, my deeds must not be showne
  Vnlesse this generall evill they maintaine,
  All men are bad and in their badnesse raigne. Vpon the receit of a Table Booke from his Mistris. [Sonnet CXXII]
Thy guift, thy tables, are within my braine
Full characterd with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle ranke remaine
Beyond all date even to eternitie.
Or at the least, so long as braine and heart
Have facultie by nature to subsist,
Till each to raz'd oblivion yeeld his part
Of thee, thy record never can be mist:

That poore retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy deare love to score.
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receave thee more,
  To keepe an adjunckt to remember thee,
  Were to import forgetfulnesse in me. A Vow. [Sonnet CXXIII]
No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I doe change,
Thy pyramyds built up with newer might
To me are nothing novell, nothing strange,
They are but dressings of a former sight:
Our dates are breefe, and therefore we admire,
What thou dost foyst upon us that is old,
And rather make them borne to our desire,
Then thinke that we before have heard them told:
Thy registers and thee I both defie,
Not wondring at the present nor the past,
For thy records, and what we see doth lye,
Made more or lesse by thy continuall haste:
  This I doe vow and this shall ever be,
  I will be true despight thy Sithe and thee. Loves safetie. [Sonnet CXXIV]
If my deare love were but the child of state,
It might for fortunes bastard be unfathered,

As subject to times love, or to times hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gatherd.
No it was builded far from accident,
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Vnder the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th'inviting time our fashion calls:
It feares not policy that Heriticke,
Which workes on leases of short numbred howers,
But all alone stands hugely polliticke,
That it nor growes with heat, nor drownes with showres.
  To this I witnesse call the fooles of time,
  Which dye for goodnesse, who have liv'd for crime. An intreatie for her acceptance. [Sonnet CXXV]
Wer't ought to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honoring,
Or layd great bases for eternitie,
Which proves more short then waste or ruining?
Have I not seene dwellers on forme and favor
Lose all, and more by paying too much rent
For compound sweet; Forgoing simple savour,
Pittifull thrivors in their gazing spent.
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poore but free,
Which is not mixt with seconds, knowes no art,
But mutuall render, onely me for thee.
  Hence, thou subbornd Informer, a true soule
  When most impeacht, stands least in thy controule.

Vpon her playing on the Virginalls. [Sonnet CXXVIII]
How oft when thou thy musicke musicke playst,
Vpon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently swayst,
The wiry concord that mine eare confounds,
Doe I envie those Iackes that nimble leape,
To kisse the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poore lips which should that harvest reape,
At the woods bouldnesse by thee blushing stand.
To be so tickled they would change their state,
And situation with those dancing chips,
Ore whom their fingers walke with gentle gate,
Making dead wood more blest then living lips.
  Since sausie Iackes so happy are in this,
  Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kisse. Immoderate Lust. [Sonnet CXXIX]
Th' expence of Spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Is perjurd, murdrous, blooddy full of blame,
Savage, extreame, rude, cruell, not to trust,
Injoyd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bayt,
On purpose layd to make the taker mad.

Made in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest, to have extreame,
A blisse in proofe and proud and very woe,
Before a joy proposd behind a dreame,
  All this the world well knowes yet none knowes well,
  To shun the haven that leads men to this hell. In prayse of her beautie though black. [Sonnet CXXVII / Sonnet CXXX / Sonnet CXXXI / Sonnet CXXXII]
In the old age black was not counted faire,
Or if it were it bore not beauties name:
But now is blacke beauties successive heire,
And Beautie slanderd with a bastard shame,
For since each hand hath put on Natures power,
Fairing the foule with Arts false borrow'd face,
Sweet beautie hath no name no holy bower,
But is prophan'd, if not, lives in disgrace.
Therefore my Mistresse eyes are Raven blacke,
Her eyes so suted, and they mourners seeme,
At such who not borne faire no beautie lack,
Slandering Creation with a false esteeme,
  Yet so they mourne becomming of their woe,
  That every tongue sayes beautie should looke so,
My Mistresse eyes are nothing like the Sunne,
Currall is farre more red, then her lips red,
If snow be white, why then her brests are dun:
If haires be wiers, black wiers grow on her head:
I have seene Roses, damaskt, red, and white,
But no such Roses see I in her cheekes,

And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Then in the breath that from my Mistresse reekes.
I love to heare her speake, yet well I know,
That Musicke hath a farre more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddesse goe,
My Mistresse when shee walkes treads on the ground,
  And yet by heaven I thinke my love as rare,
  As any she beli'd with false compare.
Thou art a tiranous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruell;
For well thou know'st to my deare doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious Iewell.
Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the power to make love grone;
To say they erre I dare not be so bold,
Although I sweare it to my selfe alone.
And to be sure that is not false I sweare
A thousand grones but thinking on thy face,
One on anothers necke doe witnesse beare
Thy black is fairest in my judgements place.
  In nothing art thou blacke save in thy deeds,
  And thence this slander as I thinke proceeds.
Thine eyes I love, and they as pittying me,
Knowing thy heart torments me with disdaine,
Have put on blacke, and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my paine.
And truly not the morning Sun of Heaven
Better becomes the gray cheekes of th'East,
Nor that full starre that ushers in the Even
Doth halfe that glory to the sober West
As those two morning eyes become thy face:
O let it then as well beseeme thy heart

To mourne for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And sute thy pittie like in every part.
  Then will I sweare beauty her selfe is blacke,
  And all they foule that thy complection lacke. Vnkinde Abuse. [Sonnet CXXXIII / Sonnet CXXXIV]
Be shrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deepe wound it gives my friend and me;
I'st not enough to torture me along,
But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be.
Me from my selfe thy cruell eye hath taken,
And my next selfe thou harder hast ingrossed,
Of him, my selfe, and thee I am forsaken,
A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:
Prison my heart in thy steele bosomes ward,
But then my friends heart let my poore heart baile,
Who ere keepes me, let my heart be his garde,
Thou canst not then use rigor in my Iaile.
  And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,
  Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.
So now I have confest that he is thine,
And I my selfe am morgag'd to thy will,
My selfe Ile 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 kinde,
He learned but suretie-like to write for me,
Vnder that bond that him as fast doth binde.

The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer that put'st forth all to use,
And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,
So him I loose through my unkinde abuse.
  Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,
  He paies the whole, and yet I am not free. A Love-Suite. [Sonnet CXXXV / Sonnet CXXXVI]
Who ever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will too boote, and Will in over-plus,
More than enough am I that vexe thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine,
Shall will in others seeme right gracious,
And in my will no faire acceptance shine:
The sea all water, yet receives raine still,
And in abundance addeth to his store,
So thou being rich in Will adde to thy Will,
One will of mine to make thy large Will more.
  Let no unkinde, no faire beseechers kill,
  Thinke all but one, and me in that one Will.
If thy soule checke thee that I come so neere,
Sweare to thy blinde soule that I was thy Will,
And will thy soule knowes is admitted there,
Thus farre for love, my Love-suite sweet fulfill.
Will, will fulfill the treasure of thy love,
I fill it full with wills, and my will one,

In things of great receipt with ease we prove,
Among a number one is reckon'd none.
Then in the number let me passe untold,
Though in thy stores account I one must be,
For nothing hold me so it please thee hold,
That nothing me, a some-thing sweet to thee.
  Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
  And then thou lovest me, for my name is Will. His heart wounded by her eye. [Sonnet CXXXVII / Sonnet CXXXIX / Sonnet CXL]
Thou blinde foole love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold and see not what they see:
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
If eyes corrupt by over-partiall lookes,
Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyes falsehood hast thou forged hookes,
Whereto the judgement of my heart is tide?
Why should my heart thinke that a severall plot,
Which my heart knowes the wide worlds common place?
Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not
To put faire truth upon so foule a face,
  In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,
  And to this false plague are they now transferred.
O call not me to justifie the wrong,
That thy unkindnesse layes upon my heart,
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,
Vse power with power, and slay me not by Art,

Tell me thou lov'st ese-where; but in my sight,
Deare heart forbeare to glance thine eye aside,
What needst thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my ore-prest defence can bide?
Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knowes,
Her prettie lookes have beene my enemies,
And therefore from my face she turnes my foes,
That they else-where might dart their injuries.
  Yet doe not so, but since I am neere slaine,
  Kill me out-right with lookes, and rid my paine.
Be wise as thou art cruell, doe not presse
My tongue-tide patience with too much disdaine:
Least sorrow lend me words and words expresse,
The manner of my pitty wanting paine.
If I might teach thee wit better it were,
Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,
As testie sick-men when their deaths be neere,
No newes but health from their Phisitions know.
For if I should dispaire I should grow madde,
And in my madnesse might speake ill of thee,
Now this ill wresting world is growne so bad,
Mad slanderers by madde eares beleeved be.
  That I may not be so, nor thou be-lide,
  Beare thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart goe wide. A Protestation. [Sonnet CXLI / Sonnet CXLII]
In faith I doe not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note,

But 'tis my heart that loves what they dispise,
Who in despight of view is pleasd to dote.
Nor are mine eares with thy tongues tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensuall feast with the alone:
But my five wits, nor my five senses can
Diswade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswai'd the likenesse of a man,
Thy proud hearts slave and vassall wretch to be:
  Onely my plague thus farre I count my gaine,
  That she that makes me sinne, awards me paine.
Love is my sinne, and my deare vertue hate,
Hate of my sinne, grounded on sinfull loving,
O but with mine, compare thou thine owne state,
And thou shalt finde it merits not reprooving,
Or if it doe, not from those lips of thine,
That have prophan'd their scarlet ornaments,
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Rob'd others beds reveneues of their rents.
Be it lawfull I love thee, as thou lov'st those,
Whom thine eyes woe as mine importune thee,
Roote pitty in thy heart that when it growes,
Thy pitty may deserve to pittied be.
  If thou dost seeke to have what thou dost hide,
  By selfe example mai'st thou be denide, An Allusion. [Sonnet CXLIII]
Loe as a carefull huswife runnes to catch.
One of her feathered creatures broke away,

Sets downe her babe and makes all swift dispatch
In pursuite of the thing she would have stay:
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chace,
Cries to catch her, whose busie care is bent,
To follow that which flies before her face;
Not prizing her poore infants discontent;
So runst thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee a farre behind,
But if thou catch thy hope turne backe to mee:
And play the mothers part, kisse me, be kind.
  So will I pray that thou maist have thy Will,
  If thou turne backe and my loud crying still. Life and death. [Sonnet CXLV]
Those lips that Loves owne hand did make,
Breath'd forth the sound that said I hate,
To me that languisht for her sake:
But when she saw my wofull state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,
Was usde in giving gentle doome:
And taught it thus a new to greete:
I hate she altered with an end,
That follow'd it as gentle day,
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flowne away,
  I hate, from hate away she threw,
  And sav'd my life saying not you.

A Consideration of death. [Sonnet CXLVI]
Poore soule, the center of my sinfull earth,
My sinfull earth these rebell powers that thee aray,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls in costly gay?
Why so large cost having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall wormes in heritors of this excesse,
Eate up thy charge? is this thy bodies end?
Then soule live thou upon thy servants losse,
And let that pine to aggrivate thy store,
Buy tearmes divine in selling houres of drosse:
VVithin be fed, without be rich no more.
  So shalt thou feed on death, that feedes on men,
  And death once dead, ther's no more dying then. Immoderate Passion. [Sonnet CXLVII]
My love is as a feaver longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th'uncertaine sickly appetite to please:
My reason the Phisition to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire is death, which Phisicke did except.

Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,
And franticke madde with ever-more unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as mad mens are,
At randome from the truth vainely exprest.
  For I have sworne thee faire, and thought thee bright,
  Who art as blacke as hell, as darke as night. Loves powerfull subtilty. [Sonnet CXLVIII / Sonnet CXLIX / Sonnet CL]
O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight,
Or if they have, where is my judgement fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be faire where on my false eyes dote,
What meanes the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote,
Loves eye is not so true as all mens: no
How can it? Oh how can loves eye be true,
That is so vext with watching and with teares?
No marvell then though I mistake my view,
The Sunne it selfe sees not, till heaven cleeres.
  O cunning love, with teares thou keepst me blinde,
  Least eyes well seeing thy foule faults should finde.
Canst thou O cruell, say I love thee not,
When I against my selfe with thee partake:
Doe I not thinke on thee when I forgot
Am of my selfe, all tyrant for thy sake?
Who hateth thee, that I doe call my friend,
On whom froun'st thou that I doe faune upon.

Nay if thou lowrst on me, doe I not spend
Revenge upon my selfe with present mone,
What merit do I in my selfe respect,
That is so proud thy service to dispise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes.
  But love hate on for now I know thy minde,
  Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blinde.
Oh from what power hast thou this powrefull might,
With insufficiency my heart to sway,
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And sweare that brightnesse doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becomming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds,
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That in my minde thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I heare and see just cause of hate,
Oh though I love what others doe abhorre,
With others thou shouldst not abhorre my state.
  If thy unworthinesse rais'd love in me.
  More worthy I to be belov'd of thee. Retaliation. [Sonnet LXXVIII / Sonnet LXXIX]
So oft have I invok'd thee for my Muse,
And found such faire assistance in my verse,
As every Alien Pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesie disperse.

Thine eyes that taught the dumbe on high to sing,
And heavie ignorance aloft to flie,
Have added feathers to the learneds wing,
And given grace a double Majestie.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and borne of thee,
In others workes thou dost but mend the stile,
And Arts with thy sweete graces graced be.
  But thou art all my Art, and dost advance
  As high as learning, my rude ignorance,
Whilst I alone did call upon thy aide,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
But now my gracious numbers are decaide,
And my sicke Muse doth give another place.
I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument
Deserves the travell of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee thy Poet doth invent,
He robs thee of, and payes it thee againe,
He lends thee vertue, and he stole that word.
From thy behaviour, beautie doth he give
And found it in thy cheeke: he can afford
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.
  Then thanke him not for that Which he doth say,
Since what he owes thee, thou thy selfe dost pay. Sunne Set. [Sonnet LXXIII / Sonnet LXXVII]
That time of yeare thou maist in mee behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few doe hang

Vpon those boughes which shake against the cold
Bare ruin'd quires, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twi-lights of such day,
As after Sun-set fadeth in the West,
Which by and by blacke night doth take away,
Deaths second selfe that seales up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nurrisht by.
  Tis thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong.
  To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Thy glasse will shew thee how thy beauties were,
Thy dyall how thy precious minutes waste,
The vacant leaves thy mindes imprint will beare,
And of this booke, this learning maist thou taste.
The wrinckles which thy glasse will truely show,
Of mouthed graves will give the memory,
Thou by thy dyals shady stealth maist know,
Times theevish progresse to eternity,
Looke what thy memory cannot containe,
Commit to these waste blacks, and thou shalt finde,
Those children nurst, delivered from thy braine,
To take a new acquaintance of thy minde.
  These offices so oft as thou wilt looke.
  Shall profit thee, and much inrich thy booke. A monument to Fame. [Sonnet CVII / Sonnet CVIII]
Not mine owne feares, nor the propheticke soule,
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,

Can yet the lease of my true love controule
Supposde as forfeit to a confin'd doome.
The mortall Moone hath her eclipse indur'd
And the sad Augurs mocke their owne presage,
Incertainties now crowne themselves assur'd,
And peace proclaimes Olives of endlesse age.
Now with the droppes of this most balmie time,
My love lookes fresh, and death to me subscribes,
Since spight of him Ile live in this poore rime,
While he insults ore dull and speechlesse tribes.
  And thou in this shalt finde thy monument,
  When tyrants crests and tombs of brasse are spent.
What's in the braine that inke may character,
Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit,
What's new to speake, what now to register,
That may expresse my love, or thy deare merit?
Nothing sweet-love, but yet like prayers divine,
I must each day say ore the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallowed thy faire name.
So that eternall love in loves fresh case,
Weighes not the dust and injuries of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquitie for aye his page,
Fnding the first conceit of love there bred,
Where time and outward forme would shew it dead. Perjurie. [Sonnet CLI / Sonnet CLII]
Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knowes not conscience is borne of love,

Then gentle cheater urge not my amisse,
Least guilty of my faults thy sweet selfe prove.
For thou betraying me, I doe betray
My nobler part to my grosse bodies treason,
My soule doth tell my body that he may,
Triumph in love, flesh staies no farther reason,
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poore drudge to be
To stand in thy affaires, fall by thy side.
  No want of conscience hold it that I call,
  Her love, for whose deare love I rise and fall.
In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworne,
But thou art twice forsworne to me love swearing,
In act thy bed-vow brooke and new faith torne,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing:
But why of two oathes breach doe I accuse thee,
When I breake twenty: I am perjur'd most,
For all my vowes are oathes but to misuse thee:
And all my honest faith in thee is lost.
For I have sworne deepe oathes of thy deepe kindenesse:
Oathes of thy love, thy truth, thy constancie,
And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindnesse,
Or made them sweare against the thing they see.
  For I have sworne thee faire: more perjur'd eye,
  To sweare against the truth so foule a lie. The Tale of
Beneath Hymetus hill well cloath'd with flowers,
A holy Well her soft springs gently powers,

Where stands a Cops, in which the wood-Nymphs shrove,
(No wood) it rather seemes a slender Grove.
The humble shrubs and bushes hide the grasse,
Here Lawrell, Rosemary, here Myrtill was.
Here grew thicke Box, and Tam'rix, that excells,
And made a meere confusion of sweet smels:
The Triffoly, the Pine, and on this Heath
Stands many a plant that feeles coole Zephirs breath.
Here the young Cephalus tyr'd in the chace,
Vsd his repose and rest alone t'embrace,
And where he sat, these words he would repeate,
Come Ayre, sweete Ayre, come coole my heate:
Come gentle Ayre, I never will forsake thee,
Ile hug thee thus, and in my bosome take thee.
Some double dutious Tel-tale hapt to heare this,
And to his jealous wife doth straight-way beare this.
Which Procris hearing, and with all the Name
Of Ayre, (sweete Ayre) which he did oft proclaime,
She stands confounded, and amaz'd with griefe,
Be giving this fond tale too sound beleefe.
And lookes as doe the trees by Winter nipt,
Whom Frost and cold, of fruit and leaves halfe stript,
She bends like corveile, when too ranke it growes,
Or when the ripe fruits clog the Quince-tree bowes:
But when she comes t'her selfe, she teares
Her Garments, her eyes, her cheekes, and haires,
And then she starts, and to her feete applies her,
Then to the Woods (starke Wood) in rage she hies her,
Approaching some-what neare her servants they
By her appointment in a Vally stay,
Whilst she alone with creeping paces steales
To take the strumpet whom her Lord conceales.

What mean'st thou Procris in these Groves to hide thee?
What rage of love doth to this madnesse guide thee?
Thou hop'st the Ayre he cals, in all her braverie
Will straight approach, and thou shalt see their knavery?
And now againe it Irkes her to be there,
For such a killing sight her heart will teare.
No truce can with her troubled thoughts dispence,
She would not now be there, nor yet be thence:
Behold the place: her jealous minde foretels,
Here doe they Vse to meete, and no where else:
The Grasse is laid, and see their true impression,
Even here they lay: I, here was their transgression.
A bodies print she saw, it was his seate,
Which makes her faint heart gainst her ribs to beate,
Phœbus the lofty Easterne Hill had scald,
And all moist vapours from the earth exhald:
Now in his noone-tide point he shineth bright,
It was the middle houre, twixt noone and night:
Behold young Cephalus drawes to the place,
And with the Fountaine water sprinkes his face,
Procris is hid, upon the grasse he lies,
And come sweete Zephir, Come sweet Ayre he cryes.
She sees her error now from where he stood,
Her mind returnes to her, and her fresh blood,
Among the Shrubs and Briers she moves and rustles,
And the injurious boughes away she justels,
Intending, as he lay there to repose him,
Nimbly to run, and in her armes inclose him:
He quickly casts his eye upon the bush,
Thinking therein some savage beast did rush,
His bow he bends, and a keene shaft he drawes,
Vnhappy man, what dost thou? Stay and pause.

It is no bruit beast thou wouldst reave of life;
(Oh man unhappy) thou hast slaine thy wife?
Oh Heaven she cries, Oh helpe me I am slaine,
Still doth thy Arrow in my wound remaine,
Yet though by timelesse Fate my bones here lie,
It glads me most, that I, no Cuck-queane die:
Her breath (thus in the Armes she most affected,)
She breaths into the Ayre (before suspected
The whilst he lifts her body from the ground,
And with his teares doth wash her bleeding wound. Cupids Treacherie. [Sonnet CLIII / Sonnet CLIV]
Cvpid laid by his brand and fell asleepe,
A maide of Dyans this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steepe
In a cold vallie-fountaine of that ground:
Which borrow'd from this holy fire of love,
A datelesse lively heate still to endure,
And grew a seething bath which yet men prove,
Against strange malladies a soveraigne cure:
But at my mistres eye loves brand new fired,
Thy boy for triall needes would touch my breast,
I sicke with all the helpe of bath desired,
And thether hyed a sad distempered guest.
  But found no cure, the bath for my helpe lies,
  Where Cupid got new fire; my mistres eyes.
The little Love-God lying once a sleepe,
Laid by his side his heart in flaming brand,

Whilst many Nymphes that vow'd chast life to keepe,
Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,
The fairest votary tooke up that fire,
Which many Legions of true hearts had warm'd,
And so the Generall of hot desire,
Was sleeping by a Virgin hand disarm'd.
This brand she quenched in a coole Well by,
Which from loves fire tooke heat perpetuall,
Growing a bath and healthfull remedy,
For men diseas'd, but I my Mistresse thrall,
  Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,
  Loves fire heates water, water cooles not love. That
When Menelaus from his house is gone,
Poore Hellen is affraid to lie alone;
And to allay these feares (lodg'd in her breast)
In her warme bosome she receives her guest:
What madnesse was this? Menelaus, say
Thou art abroad whilst in thy house doth stay
Vnder the selfe-same roofe, thy Guest, and Love?
Mad-man unto the Hawke thou trusts the Dove.
And who but such a Gull, would give to keepe
Vnto the Mountaine Woofe full folds of Sheepe?
Hellen is blamelesse, so is Paris too,
And did what thou, or I my selfe would doe.

The fault is thine, I tell thee to thy face,
By limiting these Lovers, Time and Place.
From thee the seedes of all thy wrongs are growne,
Whose Counsels have they followed, but thine owne?
(Alacke) what should they doe? Abroad thou art,
At home thou leavest thy Guest to play thy part:
To lie alone, the (poore Queene is affraid,
In the next roome an Amorous stranger staid.
Her armes are ope to embrace him, he falls in,
And Paris I acquit thee of the sinne.