If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd, As subject to Time's love, or to Time's hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd. No, it was builded far from accident; It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent, Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls; It fears not policy, that heretic, Which works on leases of short-numb'red hours, But all alone stands hugely politic, That it nor grows with heat...
Oct 10, 2021•16 min
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 wond'ring at the present, nor the past, For thy records and what we see doth lie, Made more or less by thy contin...
Sep 19, 2021•16 min
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full character'd 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 raz'd oblivion yield his part Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd. 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 kee...
Sep 12, 2021•11 min
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed, When not to be receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing. For why should others' 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 m...
Sep 05, 2021•11 min
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 hammered steel. For if you were by my unkindness shaken As I by yours, y' have pass'd a hell of time, And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken To weigh how once I suffered in your crime. O that our night of woe might have rememb'red My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits, And soon to you, as you to me then, tend'red The humble salve whic...
Aug 22, 2021•12 min
What potions have I drunk of Siren tears Distill'd 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 ruin'd love when it is built anew Grows fairer than at first, ...
Aug 15, 2021•11 min
Like as to make our appetites 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 ne'er-cloying sweetness, To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding, And sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness To be diseas'd ere that there was true needing. Thus policy in love, t' anticipate The ills that were not, grew to faults assured, And brought to medicine a healthful state Which, rank of goodness, woul...
Aug 08, 2021•12 min
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-purchas'd right; That I have hoisted sail to all the winds Which should transport me farthest from your sight. Book both my willfulness and errors down, And on just proof surmise accumulate; Bring me within the level of your frown, But shoot not at me in your ...
Jul 25, 2021•11 min
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 wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his highth 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 ...
Jul 18, 2021•11 min
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 million'd accidents Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings, Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, Divert strong minds to th' course of alt'ring things: Alas, why, fearing of Time's tyranny, Might I not then say, "Now I love you best," When I was certain o'er incertaint...
Jul 11, 2021•14 min
Or whether doth my mind being crown'd with you Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery? Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true, And that your love taught it this alcumy, 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, 'tis the first, 'tis flatt'ry in my seeing, And my great mind most kingly drinks it up; Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, And to his palate ...
Jun 20, 2021•11 min
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 flow'r, 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 rud'st or gentlest sight, The most sweet favor or deformed'st creature, The mountain or the sea, the day or night, The crow or dove, it shapes ...
Jun 13, 2021•11 min
Your love and pity doth th' impression fill Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow, For what care I who calls me well or ill, So you o'er-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 steel'd sense or changes right or wrong. In so profound abysm I throw all care Of others' voices, that my adder's sense To critic and to flatterer stopped are. Mark how with my neglect I do di...
Jun 06, 2021•14 min
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 subdu'd To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. Pity me then, and wish I were renew'd, Whilst like a willing patient I will drink Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection, No bitterness that I will bitter think, Nor double penance, to correct cor...
May 23, 2021•17 min
Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view, Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offenses of affections new; Most true it is that I have look'd on truth Askaunce and strangely: but by all above, These blenches gave my heart another youth, And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love. Now all is done, have 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 ...
May 16, 2021•16 min
O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify; As easy might I from myself depart As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie: That is my home of love; if I have rang'd, Like him that travels I return again, Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd, So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe, though in my nature reign'd All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stain'd, To leave for nothing all thy sum ...
May 09, 2021•10 min
What's in the brain that ink may character Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit? What's new to speak, what now to register, That may express my love, or thy dear merit? Nothing, sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine, I must each day say o'er the very same, Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name. So that eternal love in love's fresh case Weighs not the dust and injury of age, Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, But makes antiquity f...
Apr 18, 2021•13 min
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love control, Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom. The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd, And the sad augurs mock their own presage, Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd, And peace proclaims olives of endless age. Now with the drops of this most balmy time My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes, Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme, While he insul...
Apr 11, 2021•16 min
When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express'd Even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring, And for they look'd but with divining eyes, They had not still enough your worth to sing: ...
Apr 04, 2021•15 min
Let not my love be call'd idolatry, Nor my beloved as an idol show, Since all alike my songs and praises be To one, of one, still such, and ever so. Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, Still constant in a wondrous excellence, Therefore my verse, to constancy confin'd, One thing expressing, leaves out difference. "Fair," "kind," and "true" is all my argument, "Fair," "kind," and "true" varying to other words, And in this change is my invention spent, Three themes in one, which wondrous scope ...
Mar 21, 2021•11 min
To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I ey'd, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd, So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth ...
Mar 14, 2021•15 min
Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth, That having such a scope to show her pride, The argument all bare is of more worth Than when it hath my added praise beside. O, blame me not if I no more can write! Look in your glass, and there appears a face That overgoes my blunt invention quite, Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace. Were it not sinful then, striving to mend, To mar the subject that before was well? For to no other pass my verses tend Than of your graces and your gifts to tell; And...
Mar 07, 2021•9 min
My love is strength'ned, though more weak in seeming, I love not less, though less the show appear; That love is merchandiz'd whose rich esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish every where. Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays, As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, And stops her pipe in growth of riper days: Not that the summer is less pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild music burdens every bough, And ...
Feb 21, 2021•13 min
O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd? Both truth and beauty on my love depends; So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer, Muse, wilt thou not haply say, "Truth needs no color with his color fix'd, Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay; But best is best, if never intermix'd"? Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb? Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee To make him much outlive a gilded tomb, And to be prais'd of ages yet to be. T...
Feb 14, 2021•12 min
Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long To speak of that which gives thee all thy might? Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song, Dark'ning thy pow'r to lend base subjects light? Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem In gentle numbers time so idly spent; Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem, And gives thy pen both skill and argument. Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey, If Time have any wrinkle graven there; If any, be a satire to decay, And make Time's spoil...
Feb 07, 2021•13 min
The forward violet thus did I chide: Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love's breath? The purple pride Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd. The lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjerom had stol'n thy hair; The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, One blushing shame, another white despair; A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both, And to his robb'ry had annex'd thy breath, But for his...
Jan 24, 2021•19 min
From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud pied April (dress'd in all his trim) Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leapt with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odor and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew; Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose, They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you...
Jan 17, 2021•13 min
How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December's bareness every where! And yet this time remov'd was summer's time, The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease: Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me But hope of orphans and unfathered fruit, For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, And thou away, the very bi...
Jan 10, 2021•12 min
Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness, Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport; Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less: Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort. As on the finger of a throned queen The basest jewel will be well esteem'd, So are those errors that in thee are seen To truths translated, and for true things deem'd. How many lambs might the stern wolf betray, If like a lamb he could his looks translate! How many gazers mightst thou lead away, If thou woulds...
Dec 20, 2020•14 min
How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame Which like a canker in the fragrant rose, Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name! O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose! That tongue that tells the story of thy days (Making lascivious comments on thy sport) Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise, Naming thy name blesses an ill report. O, what a mansion have those vices got Which for their habitation chose out thee, Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot, And all things turns to fair th...
Dec 13, 2020•11 min
