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242

since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
while he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:

and thou in this shalt find thy monument,
when tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

W. SHAKESPEARE

TO HIS FRIEND, THAT HE SHOULD MARRY

ROM fairest creatures we desire increase,

FRO

that thereby beauty's rose might never die,
but as the riper should by time decease,
his tender heir might bear his memory:

but thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
making a famine where abundance lies,
thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
and only herald to the gaudy spring,

within thine own bud buriest thy content
and, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

to eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

WHE

A REVIVAL

W. SHAKESPEARE

HEN forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
and dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held :

then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
to say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
if thou could'st answer 'This fair child of mine
shall sum my count and make my old excuse,'
proving his beauty by succession thine!

This were to be new made when thou art old, and see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold. W. SHAKESPEARE

243

O

THE TRUE AND THE FALSE

HOW much more doth beauty beauteous seem by that sweet ornament which truth doth give! the rose looks fair but fairer we it deem

for that sweet odour which doth in it live:

the canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
as the perfuméd tincture of the roses,
hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly

when summer's breath their maskéd buds discloses :

but, for their virtue only is their show,
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.

W. SHAKESPEARE

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245

RICH AND POOR

O are you to my thoughts as food to life,

are ground:

and for the peace of you I hold such strife
as 'twixt 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 bettered that the world may see my pleasure;
sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
and by and by clean starvéd 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.

W. SHAKESPEARE

REVOLUTIONS

IKE as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

LIKE as waves

each changing place with that which goes before
in sequent toil all forwards do contend,

246

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.

W. SHAKESPEARE

THE CHARACTER OF TRUE LOVE

Ladmit impedime of true me

ET me not to the marriage of true minds

which alters when it alteration finds,
or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixèd mark

that looks on tempests and is never shaken;
it is the star to every wandering bark,

whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
within his bending sickle's 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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

W. SHAKESPEARE

247

TO TIME TO SPARE HIS FRIEND

EVOURING Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,

DEVOURING Fame, devour her own sweet brood;

pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
and burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
and do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
to the wide world and all her fading sweets;
but I forbid thee one most heinous crime:

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249

O, carve not with thy hours my Love's fair brow nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen; her in thy course untainted do allow

for beauty's pattern to succeeding men.

Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong, my Love shall in my verse ever live young.

SHA

W. SHAKESPEARE

THE UNFADING PICTURE

HALL I compare thee to a summer's day?
thou art more lovely and more temperate;
rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
and summer's lease hath all too short a date;
sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
and often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
and every fair from fair sometime declines
by chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
but thy eternal summer shall not fade
nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade
when in eternal lines to time thou growest:

so long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
so long lives this; and this gives life to thee.

W. SHAKESPEARE

THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH

O longer mourn for me when I am dead

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.

W. SHAKESPEARE

250

THE LOVER'S NIGHT THOUGHTS

WEARY with

toil, I haste me to my bed,
the dear repose for limbs with travel tired:
but then begins a journey in my head,

to work my mind, when body's work's expired:

for then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

and keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
looking on darkness which the blind do see:
save that my soul's imaginary sight
presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,

makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind
for thee and for myself no quiet find.

W. SHAKESPEARE

251

LOVE'S CONSOLATION

252

WHall'alone beweep my

HEN, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
outcast state

and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
and look upon myself and curse my fate,

wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
with what I most enjoy contented least;
yet in these thoughts myself almost despising
haply I think on Thee,—and then my state,
like to the lark at break of day arising
from sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

for thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings,
that then I scorn to change my state with kings.

L

W. SHAKESPEARE

LOVE'S INGRATITUDE

OVE, banished heaven, in earth was held in scorn,
wand'ring abroad in need and beggary;

and wanting friends, though of a goddess born,
yet craved the alms of such as passed by: