518 lines
22 KiB
Plaintext
518 lines
22 KiB
Plaintext
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FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
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That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
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But as the riper should by time decease,
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His tender heir might bear his memory:
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But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
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Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
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Making a famine where abundance lies,
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Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
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Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
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And only herald to the gaudy spring,
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Within thine own bud buriest thy content
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And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
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Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
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To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
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When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,
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And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
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Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
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Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:
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Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,
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Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
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To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
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Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
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How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
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If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
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Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,'
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Proving his beauty by succession thine!
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This were to be new made when thou art old,
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And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.
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Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
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Now is the time that face should form another;
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Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
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Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
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For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
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Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
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Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
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Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
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Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
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Calls back the lovely April of her prime:
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So thou through windows of thine age shall see
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Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
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But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
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Die single, and thine image dies with thee.
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Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
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Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?
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Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
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And being frank she lends to those are free.
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Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
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The bounteous largess given thee to give?
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Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
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So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
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For having traffic with thyself alone,
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Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
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Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
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What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
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Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee,
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Which, used, lives th' executor to be.
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Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
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The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
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Will play the tyrants to the very same
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And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
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For never-resting time leads summer on
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To hideous winter and confounds him there;
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Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
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Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:
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Then, were not summer's distillation left,
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A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
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Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
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Nor it nor no remembrance what it was:
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But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet,
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Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.
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Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
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In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
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Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
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With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
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That use is not forbidden usury,
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Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
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That's for thyself to breed another thee,
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Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
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Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
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If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
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Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
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Leaving thee living in posterity?
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Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
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To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
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Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
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Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
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Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
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Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
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And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,
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Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
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yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
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Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
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But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
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Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
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The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
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From his low tract and look another way:
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So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,
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Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.
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Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
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Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
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Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
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Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
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If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
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By unions married, do offend thine ear,
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They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
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In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
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Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
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Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
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Resembling sire and child and happy mother
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Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
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Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
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Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'
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Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
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That thou consumest thyself in single life?
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Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die.
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The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;
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The world will be thy widow and still weep
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That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
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When every private widow well may keep
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By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind.
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Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend
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Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
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But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
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And kept unused, the user so destroys it.
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No love toward others in that bosom sits
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That on himself such murderous shame commits.
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For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,
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Who for thyself art so unprovident.
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Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
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But that thou none lovest is most evident;
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For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate
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That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire.
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Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
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Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
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O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!
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Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
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Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
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Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
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Make thee another self, for love of me,
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That beauty still may live in thine or thee.
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As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest
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In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
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And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest
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Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
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Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase:
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Without this, folly, age and cold decay:
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If all were minded so, the times should cease
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And threescore year would make the world away.
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Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,
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Harsh featureless and rude, barrenly perish:
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Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;
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Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
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She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby
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Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
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When I do count the clock that tells the time,
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And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
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When I behold the violet past prime,
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And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
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When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
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Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
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And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
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Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
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Then of thy beauty do I question make,
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That thou among the wastes of time must go,
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Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
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And die as fast as they see others grow;
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And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
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Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
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O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are
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No longer yours than you yourself here live:
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Against this coming end you should prepare,
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And your sweet semblance to some other give.
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So should that beauty which you hold in lease
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Find no determination: then you were
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Yourself again after yourself's decease,
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When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
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Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
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Which husbandry in honour might uphold
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Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
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And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
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O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know
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You had a father: let your son say so.
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Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;
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And yet methinks I have astronomy,
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But not to tell of good or evil luck,
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Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
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Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
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Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
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Or say with princes if it shall go well,
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By oft predict that I in heaven find:
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But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
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And, constant stars, in them I read such art
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As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
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If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;
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Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
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Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
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When I consider every thing that grows
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Holds in perfection but a little moment,
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That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
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Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
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When I perceive that men as plants increase,
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Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky,
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Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
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And wear their brave state out of memory;
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Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
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Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
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Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,
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To change your day of youth to sullied night;
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And all in war with Time for love of you,
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As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
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But wherefore do not you a mightier way
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Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
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And fortify yourself in your decay
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With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
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Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
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And many maiden gardens yet unset
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With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,
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Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
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So should the lines of life that life repair,
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Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,
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Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,
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Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.
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To give away yourself keeps yourself still,
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And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.
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Who will believe my verse in time to come,
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If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
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Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
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Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
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If I could write the beauty of your eyes
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And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
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The age to come would say 'This poet lies:
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Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
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So should my papers yellow'd with their age
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Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,
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And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
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And stretched metre of an antique song:
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But were some child of yours alive that time,
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You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.
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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
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Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
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Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
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And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
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Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
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And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
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And every fair from fair sometime declines,
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By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
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But thy eternal summer shall not fade
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Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
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Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
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When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
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So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
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So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
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Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
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And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
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Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
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And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
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Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
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And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
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To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
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But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
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O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
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Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
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Him in thy course untainted do allow
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For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
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Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
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My love shall in my verse ever live young.
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A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
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Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
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A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
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With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
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An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
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Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
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A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,
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Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
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And for a woman wert thou first created;
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Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
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And by addition me of thee defeated,
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By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
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But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
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Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.
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So is it not with me as with that Muse
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Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,
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Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
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And every fair with his fair doth rehearse
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Making a couplement of proud compare,
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With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
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With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare
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That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
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O' let me, true in love, but truly write,
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And then believe me, my love is as fair
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As any mother's child, though not so bright
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As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:
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Let them say more than like of hearsay well;
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I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
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My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
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So long as youth and thou are of one date;
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But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
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Then look I death my days should expiate.
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For all that beauty that doth cover thee
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Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
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Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
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How can I then be elder than thou art?
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O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
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As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
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Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
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As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
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Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
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Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again.
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As an unperfect actor on the stage
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Who with his fear is put besides his part,
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Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
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Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart.
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So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
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The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
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And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
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O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might.
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O, let my books be then the eloquence
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And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
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Who plead for love and look for recompense
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More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
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O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
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To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
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Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
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Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
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My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
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And perspective it is the painter's art.
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For through the painter must you see his skill,
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To find where your true image pictured lies;
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Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
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That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
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Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
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Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
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Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
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Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
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Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;
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They draw but what they see, know not the heart.
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Let those who are in favour with their stars
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Of public honour and proud titles boast,
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Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
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Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
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Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
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But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
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And in themselves their pride lies buried,
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For at a frown they in their glory die.
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The painful warrior famoused for fight,
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After a thousand victories once foil'd,
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Is from the book of honour razed quite,
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And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:
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Then happy I, that love and am beloved
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Where I may not remove nor be removed.
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Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
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Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
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To thee I send this written embassage,
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To witness duty, not to show my wit:
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Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
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May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
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But that I hope some good conceit of thine
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In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;
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Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
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Points on me graciously with fair aspect
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And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,
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To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
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Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
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Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me.
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Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
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The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
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But then begins a journey in my head,
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To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
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For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
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Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
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And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
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Looking on darkness which the blind do see
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Save that my soul's imaginary sight
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Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
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Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
|
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|
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
|
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|
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
|
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|
For thee and for myself no quiet find.
|
||
|
How can I then return in happy plight,
|
||
|
That am debarr'd the benefit of rest?
|
||
|
When day's oppression is not eased by night,
|
||
|
But day by night, and night by day, oppress'd?
|
||
|
And each, though enemies to either's reign,
|
||
|
Do in consent shake hands to torture me;
|
||
|
The one by toil, the other to complain
|
||
|
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
|
||
|
I tell the day, to please them thou art bright
|
||
|
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
|
||
|
So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,
|
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|
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.
|
||
|
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer
|
||
|
And night doth nightly make grief's strength seem stronger.
|
||
|
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
|
||
|
I all alone beweep my outcast state
|
||
|
And trouble deal 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.
|
||
|
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
|
||
|
I summon up remembrance of things past,
|
||
|
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
|
||
|
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
|
||
|
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
|
||
|
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
|
||
|
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
|
||
|
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
|
||
|
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
|
||
|
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
|
||
|
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
|
||
|
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
|
||
|
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
|
||
|
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
|
||
|
Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
|
||
|
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
|
||
|
And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,
|
||
|
And all those friends which I thought buried.
|
||
|
How many a holy and obsequious tear
|
||
|
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye
|
||
|
As interest of the dead, which now appear
|
||
|
But things removed that hidden in thee lie!
|
||
|
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
|
||
|
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
|
||
|
Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
|
||
|
That due of many now is thine alone:
|
||
|
Their images I loved I view in thee,
|
||
|
And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.
|
||
|
If thou survive my well-contented day,
|
||
|
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
|
||
|
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
|
||
|
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
|
||
|
Compare them with the bettering of the time,
|
||
|
And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
|
||
|
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
|
||
|
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
|
||
|
O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
|
||
|
'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,
|
||
|
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
|
||
|
To march in ranks of better equipage:
|
||
|
But since he died and poets better prove,
|
||
|
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'
|
||
|
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
|
||
|
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
|
||
|
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
|
||
|
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
|
||
|
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
|
||
|
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
|
||
|
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
|
||
|
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
|
||
|
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
|
||
|
With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
|
||
|
But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
|
||
|
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
|
||
|
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
|
||
|
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.
|
||
|
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
|
||
|
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
|
||
|
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
|
||
|
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
|
||
|
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
|
||
|
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
|
||
|
For no man well of such a salve can speak
|
||
|
That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:
|
||
|
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
|
||
|
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
|
||
|
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
|
||
|
To him that bears the strong offence's cross.
|
||
|
Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
|
||
|
And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.
|
||
|
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
|
||
|
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
|
||
|
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
|
||
|
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
|
||
|
All men make faults, and even I in this,
|
||
|
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
|
||
|
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
|
||
|
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
|
||
|
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense--
|
||
|
Thy adverse party is thy advocate--
|
||
|
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
|
||
|
Such civil war is in my love and hate
|
||
|
That I an accessary needs must be
|
||
|
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
|
||
|
Let me confess that we two must be twain,
|
||
|
Although our undivided loves are one:
|
||
|
So shall those blots that do with me remain
|
||
|
Without thy help by me be borne alone.
|
||
|
In our two loves there is but one respect,
|
||
|
Though in our lives a separable spite,
|
||
|
Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
|
||
|
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
|
||
|
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
|
||
|
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
|
||
|
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
|
||
|
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
|
||
|
But do not so; I love thee in such sort
|
||
|
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
|
||
|
As a decrepit father takes delight
|
||
|
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
|
||
|
So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,
|
||
|
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
|
||
|
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
|
||
|
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
|
||
|
Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,
|
||
|
I make my love engrafted to this store:
|
||
|
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
|
||
|
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
|
||
|
That I in thy abundance am sufficed
|
||
|
And by a part of all thy glory live.
|
||
|
Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee:
|
||
|
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
|