The Sonnets Read online

  LXVI

  Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

  As to behold desert a beggar born,

  And needy nothing trimmʼd in jollity,

  And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

  And gilded honour shamefully misplacʼd,

  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

  And right perfection wrongfully disgracʼd,

  And strength by limping sway disabled

  And art made tongue-tied by authority,

  And folly—doctor-like—controlling skill,

  And simple truth miscallʼd simplicity,

  And captive good attending captain ill:

  Tirʼd with all these, from these would I be gone,

  Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

  LXVII

  Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,

  And with his presence grace impiety,

  That sin by him advantage should achieve,

  And lace itself with his society?

  Why should false painting imitate his cheek,

  And steel dead seeming of his living hue?

  Why should poor beauty indirectly seek

  Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?

  Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,

  Beggarʼd 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 show what wealth she had

  In days long since, before these last so bad.

  LXVIII

  Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,

  When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,

  Before these bastard signs of fair were born,

  Or durst inhabit on a living brow;

  Before the golden tresses of the dead,

  The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,

  To live a second life on second head;

  Ere beautyʼs dead fleece made another gay:

  In him those holy antique hours are seen,

  Without all ornament, itself and true,

  Making no summer of anotherʼs green,

  Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;

  And him as for a map doth Nature store,

  To show false Art what beauty was of yore.

  LXIX

  Those parts of thee that the worldʼs eye doth view

  Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;

  All tongues—the voice of souls—give thee that due,

  Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.

  Thy outward thus with outward praise is crownʼd;

  But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,

  In other accents do this praise confound

  By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.

  They look into the beauty of thy mind,

  And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;

  Then—churls—their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,

  To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:

  But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,

  The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.

  LXX

  That thou art blamʼd shall not be thy defect,

  For slanderʼs mark was ever yet the fair;

  The ornament of beauty is suspect,

  A crow that flies in heavenʼs sweetest air.

  So thou be good, slander doth but approve

  Thy worth the greater being wooʼd of time;

  For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,

  And thou presentʼst a pure unstained prime.

  Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days

  Either not assailʼd, or victor being chargʼd;

  Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,

  To tie up envy, evermore enlargʼd,

  If some suspect of ill maskʼd not thy show,

  Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.

  LXXI

  No longer mourn for me when I am dead

  Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

  Give warning to the world that I am fled

  From this vile world with vilest worms 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 look upon this verse,

  When I perhaps compounded am with clay,

  Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;

  But let your love even with my life decay;

  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 lived 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:

  O! 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 shamed by that which I bring forth,

  And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

  LXXIII

  That time of year thou mayst in me behold

  When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

  Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

  Bare ruinʼd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

  In me thou seeʼst the twilight of such day

  As after sunset fadeth in the west;

  Which by and by black night doth take away,

  Deathʼs second self, that seals up all in rest.

  In me thou seeʼst the glowing of such fire,

  That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

  As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,

  Consumʼd with that which it was nourishʼd by.

  This thou perceivʼst, which makes thy love more strong,

  To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

  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 wretchʼs 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-seasonʼd showers are to the ground;

  And for the peace of you I hold such strife

  As ʼtwixt a miser and his wealth is found.

  Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon

  Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;

  Now counting best to be with you alone,

  Then betterʼd that the world may see my pleasure:

  Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,

  And by and by clean starved for a look;

  Possessing or pursuing no delight,

  Save what is had, or must from you be took.

  Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,

  Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

  LXXVI

&
nbsp; Why is my verse so barren of new pride,

  So far from variation or quick change?

  Why with the time do I not glance aside

  To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?

  Why write I still all one, ever the same,

  And keep invention in a noted weed,

  That every word doth almost tell my name,

  Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

  O! know sweet love I always write of you,

  And you and love are still my argument;

  So all my best is dressing old words new,

  Spending again what is already spent:

  For as the sun is daily new and old,

  So is my love still telling what is told.

  LXXVII

  Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,

  Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;

  These vacant leaves thy mindʼs imprint will bear,

  And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.

  The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show

  Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;

  Thou by thy dialʼs shady stealth mayst know

  Timeʼs thievish progress to eternity.

  Look! what thy memory cannot contain,

  Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find

  Those children nursed, deliverʼd from thy brain,

  To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

  Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

  LXXVIII

  So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,

  And found such fair assistance in my verse

  As every alien pen hath got my use

  And under thee their poesy disperse.

  Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing

  And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

  Have added feathers to the learnedʼs wing

  And given grace a double majesty.

  Yet be most proud of that which I compile,

  Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:

  In othersʼ works thou dost but mend the style,

  And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;

  But thou art all my art, and dost advance

  As high as learning, my rude ignorance.

  LXXIX

  Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,

  My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;

  But now my gracious numbers are decayʼd,

  And my sick Muse doth give an other place.

  I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument

  Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;

  Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent

  He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.

  He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word

  From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,

  And found it in thy cheek: he can afford

  No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.

  Then thank him not for that which he doth say,

  Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.

  LXXX

  O! how I faint when I of you do write,

  Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,

  And in the praise thereof spends all his might,

  To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!

  But since your worth—wide as the ocean is,—

  The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

  My saucy bark, inferior far to his,

  On your broad main doth wilfully appear.

  Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,

  Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;

  Or, being wrackʼd, I am a worthless boat,

  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.

  LXXXI

  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 immortal life shall have,

  Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:

  The earth can yield me but a common grave,

  When you entombed in menʼs eyes shall lie.

  Your monument shall be my gentle verse,

  Which eyes not yet created shall oʼer-read;

  And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,

  When all the breathers of this world are dead;

  You still shall live,—such virtue hath my pen,—

  Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

  LXXXII

  I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,

  And therefore mayst without attaint oʼerlook

  The dedicated words which writers use

  Of their fair subject, blessing every book.

  Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,

  Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;

  And therefore art enforced to seek anew

  Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.

  And do so, love; yet when they have devisʼd,

  What strained touches rhetoric can lend,

  Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathizʼd

  In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;

  And their gross painting might be better usʼd

  Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abusʼd.

  LXXXIII

  I never saw that you did painting need,

  And therefore to your fair no painting set;

  I found, or thought I found, you did exceed

  That barren tender of a poetʼs debt:

  And therefore have I slept in your report,

  That you yourself, being extant, well might show

  How far a modern quill doth come too short,

  Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.

  This silence for my sin you did impute,

  Which shall be most my glory being dumb;

  For I impair not beauty being mute,

  When others would give life, and bring a tomb.

  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes

  Than both your poets can in praise devise.

  LXXXIV

  Who is it that says most, which can say more,

  Than this rich praise,—that you alone, are you?

  In whose confine immured is the store

  Which should example where your equal grew.

  Lean penury 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 copy what in you is writ,

  Not making worse what nature made so clear,

  And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,

  Making his style admired every where.

  You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,

  Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.

  LXXXV

  My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,

  While comments of your praise richly compilʼd,

  Reserve their character with golden quill,

  And precious phrase by all the Muses filʼd.

  I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,

  And like unlettered clerk still cry ‘Amen’

  To every hymn that able spirit affords,

  In polishʼd form of well-refined pen.

  Hearing you praised, I say ‘ʼtis so, ʼtis true,’

  And to the most of praise add something more;

  But that is in my thought, whose love to you,

  Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.

  Then others, for the breath of words respect,

  Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

  LXXXVI


  Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

  Bound for the prize of all too precious you,

  That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,

  Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

  Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,

  Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

  No, neither he, nor his compeers by night

  Giving him aid, 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 sick of any fear from thence:

  But when your countenance fillʼd up his line,

  Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.

  LXXXVII

  Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

  And like enough thou knowʼst thy estimate,

  The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

  My bonds in thee are all determinate.

  For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?

  And for that riches where is my deserving?

  The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

  And so my patent back again is swerving.

  Thy self thou gavʼst, thy own worth then not knowing,

  Or me to whom thou gavʼst it, else mistaking;

  So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

  Comes home again, on better judgement making.

  Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,

  In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

  LXXXVIII

  When thou shalt be disposʼd to set me light,

  And place my merit in the eye of scorn,

  Upon thy side, against myself Iʼll fight,