The Sonnets Page 6

  Askance and strangely; but, by all above,

  These blenches gave my heart another youth,

  And worse essays provʼd thee my best of love.

  Now all is done, save what shall have no end:

  Mine appetite I never more will grind

  On newer proof, to try an older friend,

  A god in love, to whom I am confinʼd.

  Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

  Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

  CXI

  O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

  The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

  That did not better for my life provide

  Than public means which public manners breeds.

  Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

  And almost thence my nature is subduʼd

  To what it works in, like the dyerʼs hand:

  Pity me, then, and wish I were renewʼd;

  Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink,

  Potions of eisel ʼgainst my strong infection;

  No bitterness that I will bitter think,

  Nor double penance, to correct correction.

  Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,

  Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

  CXII

  Your love and pity doth the impression fill,

  Which vulgar scandal stampʼd upon my brow;

  For what care I who calls me well or ill,

  So you oʼer-green my bad, my good allow?

  You are my all-the-world, and I must strive

  To know my shames and praises from your tongue;

  None else to me, nor I to none alive,

  That my steelʼd sense or changes right or wrong.

  In so profound abysm I throw all care

  Of othersʼ voices, that my adderʼs sense

  To critic and to flatterer stopped are.

  Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:

  You are so strongly in my purpose bred,

  That all the world besides methinks are dead.

  CXIII

  Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;

  And that which governs me to go about

  Doth part his function and is partly blind,

  Seems seeing, but effectually is out;

  For it no form delivers to the heart

  Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch:

  Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,

  Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;

  For if it see the rudʼst or gentlest sight,

  The most sweet favour or deformedʼst creature,

  The mountain or the sea, the day or night:

  The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.

  Incapable of more, replete with you,

  My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.

  CXIV

  Or whether doth my mind, being crownʼd with you,

  Drink up the monarchʼs plague, this flattery?

  Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,

  And that your love taught it this alchemy,

  To make of monsters and things indigest

  Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,

  Creating every bad a perfect best,

  As fast as objects to his beams assemble?

  O! ʼtis the first, ʼtis flattery in my seeing,

  And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:

  Mine eye well knows what with his gust is ʼgreeing,

  And to his palate doth prepare the cup:

  If it be poisonʼd, ʼtis the lesser sin

  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

  CXV

  Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

  Even those that said I could not love you dearer:

  Yet then my judgment knew no reason why

  My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.

  But reckoning Time, whose millionʼd accidents

  Creep in ʼtwixt vows, and change decrees of kings,

  Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharpʼst intents,

  Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;

  Alas! why fearing of Timeʼs tyranny,

  Might I not then say, ʼNow I love you best,ʼ

  When I was certain oʼer incertainty,

  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?

  CXVI

  Let me not to the marriage of true minds

  Admit impediments. Love is not love

  Which alters when it alteration finds,

  Or bends with the remover to remove:

  O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

  It is the star to every wandering bark,

  Whose worthʼs unknown, although his height be taken.

  Loveʼs not Timeʼs fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

  Within his bending sickleʼs compass come;

  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

  But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

  If this be error and upon me provʼd,

  I never writ, nor no man ever lovʼd.

  CXVII

  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 do tie me day by day;

  That I have frequent been with unknown minds,

  And given to time your own dear-purchasʼd right;

  That I have hoisted sail to all the winds

  Which should transport me farthest from your sight.

  Book both my wilfulness and errors down,

  And on just proof surmise, accumulate;

  Bring me within the level of your frown,

  But shoot not at me in your wakenʼd hate;

  Since my appeal says I did strive to prove

  The constancy and virtue of your love.

  CXVIII

  Like as, to make our appetite more keen,

  With eager compounds we our palate urge;

  As, to prevent our maladies unseen,

  We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;

  Even so, being full of your neʼer-cloying sweetness,

  To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;

  And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness

  To be diseasʼd, ere that there was true needing.

  Thus policy in love, to anticipate

  The ills that were not, grew to faults assurʼd,

  And brought to medicine a healthful state

  Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be curʼd;

  But thence I learn and find the lesson true,

  Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

  CXIX

  What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,

  Distillʼd from limbecks foul as hell within,

  Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,

  Still losing when I saw myself to win!

  What wretched errors hath my heart committed,

  Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!

  How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,

  In the distraction of this madding fever!

  O benefit of ill! now I find true

  That better is, by evil still made better;

  And ruinʼd love, when it is built anew,

  Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.

  So I return rebukʼd to my content,

  And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.

  CXX

  That you were once unkind befriends me now,

  And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,

  Needs must I under my transgression bow,

  Unless my nerves were brass or hammerʼd steel.

  For if you were by my unkindness shaken, />
  As I by yours, youʼve passʼd a hell of time;

  And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

  To weigh how once I sufferʼd in your crime.

  O! that our night of woe might have rememberʼd

  My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,

  And soon to you, as you to me, then tenderʼd

  The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!

  But that your trespass now becomes a fee;

  Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

  CXXI

  ʼTis better to be vile than vile esteemʼd,

  When not to be receives reproach of being;

  And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemʼd

  Not by our feeling, but by othersʼ seeing:

  For why should othersʼ false adulterate eyes

  Give salutation to my sportive blood?

  Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

  Which in their wills count bad what I think good?

  No, I am that I am, and they that level

  At my abuses reckon up their own:

  I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;

  By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;

  Unless this general evil they maintain,

  All men are bad and in their badness reign.

  CXXII

  Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

  Full characterʼd with lasting memory,

  Which shall above that idle rank remain,

  Beyond all date; even to eternity:

  Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart

  Have faculty by nature to subsist;

  Till each to razʼd oblivion yield his part

  Of thee, thy record never can be missʼd.

  That poor retention could not so much hold,

  Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;

  Therefore to give them from me was I bold,

  To trust those tables that receive thee more:

  To keep an adjunct to remember thee

  Were to import forgetfulness in me.

  CXXIII

  No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:

  Thy pyramids built up with newer might

  To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;

  They are but dressings of a former sight.

  Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire

  What thou dost foist upon us that is old;

  And rather make them born to our desire

  Than think that we before have heard them told.

  Thy registers and thee I both defy,

  Not wondering at the present nor the past,

  For thy records and what we see doth lie,

  Made more or less by thy continual haste.

  This I do vow and this shall ever be;

  I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.

  CXXIV

  If my dear love were but the child of state,

  It might for Fortuneʼs bastard be unfatherʼd,

  As subject to Timeʼs love or to Timeʼs hate,

  Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gatherʼd.

  No, it was builded far from accident;

  It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls

  Under the blow of thralled discontent,

  Whereto thʼ inviting time our fashion calls:

  It fears not policy, that heretic,

  Which works on leases of short-numberʼd hours,

  But all alone stands hugely politic,

  That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.

  To this I witness call the fools of time,

  Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

  CXXV

  Wereʼt aught to me I bore the canopy,

  With my extern the outward honouring,

  Or laid great bases for eternity,

  Which proves more short than waste or ruining?

  Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour

  Lose all and more by paying too much rent

  For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,

  Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?

  No; let me be obsequious in thy heart,

  And take thou my oblation, poor but free,

  Which is not mixʼd with seconds, knows no art,

  But mutual render, only me for thee.

  Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul

  When most impeachʼd, stands least in thy control.

  CXXVI

  O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power

  Dost hold Timeʼs fickle glass, his fickle hour;

  Who hast by waning grown, and therein showʼst

  Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self growʼst.

  If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,

  As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,

  She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill

  May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.

  Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!

  She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:

  Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,

  And her quietus is to render thee.

  CXXVII

  In the old age black was not counted fair,

  Or if it were, it bore not beautyʼs name;

  But now is black beautyʼs successive heir,

  And beauty slanderʼd with a bastard shame:

  For since each hand hath put on Natureʼs power,

  Fairing the foul with Artʼs false borrowed face,

  Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,

  But is profanʼd, if not lives in disgrace.

  Therefore my mistressʼ eyes are raven black,

  Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem

  At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,

  Slandʼring creation with a false esteem:

  Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,

  That every tongue says beauty should look so.

  CXXVIII

  How oft when thou, my music, music playʼst,

  Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds

  With thy sweet fingers when thou gently swayʼst

  The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,

  Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,

  To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,

  Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,

  At the woodʼs boldness by thee blushing stand!

  To be so tickled, they would change their state

  And situation with those dancing chips,

  Oʼer whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,

  Making dead wood more blessʼd than living lips.

  Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,

  Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

  CXXIX

  The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

  Is lust in action: and till action, lust

  Is perjurʼd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

  Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

  Enjoyʼd no sooner but despised straight;

  Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,

  Past reason hated, as a swallowʼd bait,

  On purpose laid to make the taker mad:

  Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

  Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme;

  A bliss in proof,—and provʼd, a very woe;

  Before, a joy proposʼd; behind a dream.

  All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

  CXXX

  My mistressʼ eyes are nothing like the sun;

  Coral is far more red, than her lips red:

  If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

  I have seen roses damaskʼd, red and white,

  But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

  And in some perfumes is there mor
e delight

  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

  I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

  That music hath a far more pleasing sound:

  I grant I never saw a goddess go,—

  My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

  And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,

  As any she belied with false compare.

  CXXXI

  Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,

  As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;

  For well thou knowʼst to my dear doting heart

  Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.

  Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,

  Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;

  To say they err I dare not be so bold,

  Although I swear it to myself alone.

  And to be sure that is not false I swear,

  A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,

  One on anotherʼs neck, do witness bear

  Thy black is fairest in my judgmentʼs place.

  In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,

  And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.

  CXXXII

  Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,

  Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,

  Have put on black and loving mourners be,

  Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.

  And truly not the morning sun of heaven

  Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,

  Nor that full star that ushers in the even,

  Doth half that glory to the sober west,

  As those two mourning eyes become thy face:

  O! let it then as well beseem thy heart

  To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,

  And suit thy pity like in every part.