my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered, As subject to Time's love, or to Time's hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered. No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralléd discontent,
Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-numbered 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.
Were it aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honoring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which prove more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favor
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
For compound sweet foregoing simple savor,
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mixed with seconds,1 knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee.
1 Seconds. Mr. Dyce considers this word a misprint. The only note on the passage in the variorum editions is that of
Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul,
When most impeached, stands least in thy control.
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st!
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou go'st 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.
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:
Steevens: "I am just informed by an old lady that seconds is a
provincial term for the second kind of flour, which is collected
after the smaller bran is sifted. That our author's oblation was
pure, unmixed with baser matter, is all that he meant to say." Mr.
Dyce calls this note "preposterously absurd." Steevens, however,
knew what he was doing. He mentions the flour, as in almost
every other note upon the Sonnets, to throw discredit upon com-
positions with which he could not sympathize. He had a sharp,
cunning, pettifogging mind; and he knew many prosaic things
well enough. He knew that a second in a duel, a seconder in a
debate, a secondary in ecclesiastical affairs, meant one next to the
principal. The poet's friend has his chief oblation; no seconds,
or inferior persons, are mixed up with his tribute of affection.
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy hour,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited; and they mourners seem
At such, who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says, beauty should look so.
How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blesséd wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
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 wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blessed than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
1 Jacks. The small hammers, moved by the keys, which strike the strings of a virginal. In the comedy of" Ram Alley "we have, "Where be these rascals that skip up and down Like virginal jacks?"
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner, but despiséd straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed 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 proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream:
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
My mistress' 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 damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more 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.
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know'st 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
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 another's neck, do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
In nothing art thou black, save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.
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 gray 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
And suit thy pity like in every part.
Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack.
Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!
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