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William Shakespeare, 1564-1616 [1640], Poems: vvritten by Wil. Shake-speare. Gent (Printed... by Tho. Cotes, and are to be sold by Iohn Benson [etc.], London) [word count] [S11600].
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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.
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William Shakespeare, 1564-1616 [1640], Poems: vvritten by Wil. Shake-speare. Gent (Printed... by Tho. Cotes, and are to be sold by Iohn Benson [etc.], London) [word count] [S11600].
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