They that have pow'r to hurt, and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do show, Who moving others, are themselves as stone, Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow, They rightly do inherit heaven's graces, And husband nature's riches from expense; They are the lords and owners of their faces, Others but stewards of their excellence. The summer's flow'r is to the summer sweet, Though to itself it only live and die, But if that flow'r with base infection meet, The basest weed outbraves h...
Dec 06, 2020•11 min
So shall I live, supposing thou art true, Like a deceived husband, so love's face May still seem love to me, though alter'd new: Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place. For there can live no hatred in thine eye, Therefore in that I cannot know thy change. In many's looks the false heart's history Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange; But heaven in thy creation did decree That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell; What e'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be, Thy looks s...
Nov 22, 2020•14 min
But do thy worst to steal thyself away, For term of life thou art assured mine, And life no longer than thy love will stay, For it depends upon that love of thine. Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, When in the least of them my life hath end; I see a better state to me belongs Than that which on thy humor doth depend. Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind, Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie; O, what a happy title do I find, Happy to have thy love, happy to die! But what's s...
Nov 15, 2020•12 min
Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, Some in their wealth, some in their body's force, Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill, Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse; And every humor hath his adjunct pleasure, Wherein it finds a joy above the rest, But these particulars are not my measure, All these I better in one general best. Thy love is better than high birth to me, Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost, Of more delight than hawks or horses be; And h...
Nov 08, 2020•11 min
Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now, Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross, Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, And do not drop in for an after-loss. Ah, do not, when my heart hath scap'd this sorrow, Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe; Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, To linger out a purpos'd overthrow. If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, When other petty griefs have done their spite, But in the onset come, so shall I taste At first the very worst of f...
Oct 25, 2020•17 min
Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, And I will comment upon that offense; Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt, Against thy reasons making no defense. Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, To set a form upon desired change, As I'll myself disgrace, knowing thy will: I will acquaintance strangle and look strange, Be absent from thy walks, and in my tongue Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell, Lest I (too much profane) should do it wrong, And haply of our old ac...
Oct 18, 2020•12 min
When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light, And place my merit in the eye of scorn, Upon thy side against myself I'll fight, And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn. With mine own weakness being best acquainted, Upon thy part I can set down a story Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted, That thou in losing me shall win much glory. And I by this will be a gainer too, For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, The injuries that to myself I do, Doing thee vantage, double-vantage m...
Oct 11, 2020•11 min
Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know'st 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. Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing, Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking, So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes h...
Sep 20, 2020•13 min
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 f...
Sep 13, 2020•15 min
My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compil'd, Reserve their character with golden quill And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd. I think good thoughts whilst other write good words, And like unlettered clerk still cry "Amen" To every hymn that able spirit affords In polish'd form of well-refined pen. Hearing you prais'd, I say, "'Tis so, 'tis true," And to the most of praise add something more, But that is in my thought, whose love to you (Tho...
Sep 06, 2020•12 min
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...
Aug 16, 2020•13 min
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 The barren tender of a poet's 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 bri...
Aug 09, 2020•11 min
I grant thou wert not married to my Muse, And therefore mayest without attaint o'erlook 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 enforc'd to seek anew Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days. And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd What strained touches rhetoric can lend, Thou, truly fair, wert truly sympathiz'd In true plain words by thy true-te...
Aug 02, 2020•9 min
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 men's eyes shall lie; Your monument shall be my gentle verse, Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read, And tongues to be your being shall rehearse, When all the breathers o...
Jul 19, 2020•18 min
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 willfully appear. Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride, Or (being wrack'd) I am a worthless boat, He of tall building and o...
Jul 12, 2020•12 min
Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace, But now my gracious numbers are decay'd, And my sick Muse doth give another 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 behavior; beauty doth he give, And found it in thy cheek; he can afford No praise to thee but what in thee doth live. Then t...
Jul 05, 2020•11 min
So oft have I invok'd 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 learned's 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 others' works thou dost but mend the style, And arts with thy sweet graces graced be; But th...
Jun 21, 2020•14 min
Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste, The vacant leaves thy mind's 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 dial's shady stealth mayst know Time's thievish progress to eternity. Look what thy memory cannot contain Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy brain, To take a ...
Jun 14, 2020•15 min
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: F...
Jun 07, 2020•15 min
So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the 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 better'd 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 f...
May 17, 2020•13 min
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. Th...
May 10, 2020•11 min
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 ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset 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, Consum'd with that...
May 03, 2020•13 min
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: 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 yo...
Apr 19, 2020•10 min
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 vildest 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 l...
Apr 12, 2020•16 min
That thou are 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 prime. 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 tie up envy, evermo...
Apr 05, 2020•9 min
Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend; All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due, Utt'ring bare truth, even so as foes commend. Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd, 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 (a...
Mar 15, 2020•11 min
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, 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 live 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 to dress his beauty new, And him a...
Mar 08, 2020•15 min
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 steal dead seeing of his living hue? Why should poor beauty indirectly seek Roses of shadow, since his rose is true? Why should he live, now Nature bankrout 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, ...
Mar 01, 2020•14 min
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 honor shamefully misplac'd, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied 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, fr...
Feb 16, 2020•14 min
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o'ersways 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 wrackful siege of batt'ring 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 lie hid? Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? Or ...
Feb 09, 2020•11 min
