900

L.

How heavy do I journey on the way,

When what I seek,-my weary travel's end, Doth teach that ease and that repose to say, Thus far the miles are measur'd from thy friend! The beast that bears me, tired with my woe, Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me, As if by some instinct the wretch did know His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee:

The bloody spur cannot provoke him on

That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide; Which heavily he answers with a groan,

More sharp to me than spurring to his side; For that same groan doth put this in my mind,– My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.

LI.

Thus can my love excuse the slow offence

Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed: From where thou art why should I haste me thence?

Till I return, of posting is no need.

O, what excuse will my poor beast then find, When swift extremity can seem but slow? Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind?

In winged speed no motion shall I know: Then can no horse with my desire keep pace; Therefore, desire of perfect love being made, Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race;

But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade; Since from thee going he went wilful-slow, Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.

LII.

So am I as the rich, whose blessed key [sure,
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked trea-
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure;
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,

Since seldom coming, in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you, as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe, which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special-blest,

By new unfolding his imprison'd bride. Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope, Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to hope.

LIII.

LIV.

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses ;

But, for their virtue only is their shew,
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;
Die to themselves; Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours
made;

And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth.

LV.

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall out-live this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall The living record of your memory. [burn 'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity,

That wear this world out to the ending doom. So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

LVII.

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for
you,

Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,

When you have bid your servant once adien; Nor dare I question with my jealous thought, Where you may be, or your affairs suppose; But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought, Save, where you are, how happy you make

those:

Be where you list; your charter is so strong,
That you yourself may privilege your time:
Do what you will, to you it doth belong

Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.
LIX.

If there be nothing new, but that, which is,
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burthen of a former child?
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Shew me your image in some antique book,

Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O! sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiting praise.
LX.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before;

In sequent toil all forwards do contend, Nativity once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And time that gave, doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow; Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow; And yet, to times in hope, my verse shall stand, Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

LXI.

Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
My heavy eye-lids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows, like to thee, do mock my
sight?

Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home, into my deeds to pry;
To find out shames and idle hours in me,

The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?
O no! thy love, though much, is not so great;
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake:
For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake else-

where

From me far off, with others all-too-near.

LXII.

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,

It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,

As I all other in all worths surmount. But when my glass shews me myself indeed, Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity, Mine own self-love quite contrary I read,

Self so self-loving were iniquity. "Tis thee (myself) that for myself I praise, Painting my age with beauty of thy days.

LXIII.

Against my love shall be, as I am now, [worn; With time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erWhen hours have drain'd his blood, and fill'd his brow [morn

With lines and wrinkles; when his youth.ful Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;

And all those beauties, whereof now he's king, Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight,

Stealing away the treasure of his spring; For such a time do I now fortify

Against confounding age's cruel knife, That he shall never cut from memory

My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life. His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, And they shall live, and he in them still green.

LXIV.

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
The rich-proud cost of out-worn bury'd age;
When sometimes lofty towers I see down-raz'd,
And brass eternal, slave to mortal rage:
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate-

That time will come, and take my love away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

LXV.

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o'er-sways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wreckful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays? O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall time's best jewel from time's chest be hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

LXVI.

Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry,-
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-ty'd by authority,
And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity.

And captive good attending captain ill: Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is, Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively

veins ?

For she hath no exchequer now but his,

And, proud of many, lives upon his gains. O, him she stores, to shew what wealth she had, In days long since, before these last so bad. LXVIII.

Thus is his cheek the map of days out-worn, When beauty liv'd and died, as flowers do

now,

Before these bastard signs of fair were borne,

Or durst inhabit on a living brow; Before the golden tresses of the dead,

The right of sepulchres, were shorn away, To give a second life on second head;

Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay: In him those holy antique hours are seen, Without all ornament, itself and true, Making no summer of another's green,

Robbing no old dress his beauty new; And him as for a map doth nature store, To shew false heart what beauty was of yore. LXIX.

view,

Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth [mend; Want nothing that the thought of hearts can All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due, [mend. Uttering bare truth, even so as foes comThine outward thus with outward praise is [thine own, But those same tongues that give thee so In other accents do this praise confound,

crown'd;

By seeing farther than the eye hath shewn. They look into the beauty of thy mind, And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds: [eyes were kind, Then (churls) their thoughts, although their To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:

But why thy odour matcheth not thy shew, The solve is this, that thou dost common grow.

LXX.

That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect, For slander's mark was ever yet the fair; The ornament of beauty is suspect,

A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. So thou be good, slander doth but approve

Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time; For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,

And thou present'st a pure unstained prinie. Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days, Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd; Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise, To tye up envy evermore enlarg'd: If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy shew, Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts should'st

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.
LXXII.

O, lest the world should task you to recite
What merit liv'd in me, that you should love
After my death,-dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I,
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
0, lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak 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 sham'd by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth. LXXIII.

That time of year thou may'st in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, [birds sang.

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sun-set fadeth in the west;

Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals 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, This thou perceiv'st which makes thy love Consum'd with that which itwas nourish'd by. flong. To love that well which thou must leave ere

more strong,

LXXIV.

But be contented: when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,

Which for memorial 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 worms, my body being dead;
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered.
The worth of that, is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains
LXXV.

So are you to my thoughts, as food to life,

Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the