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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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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.
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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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