What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend? Since every one, hath every one, one shade, And you but one, can every shadow lend....
So am I as the rich, whose blessed key, Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure, The which he will not every hour survey, For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure....
Thus can my love excuse the slow offence Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed: From where thou art why should I haste me thence? Till I return, of posting is no need....
O! 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....
If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd, Which labouring for invention bear amiss The second burthen of a former child!...
Being your slave what should I do but tend, Upon the hours, and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend; Nor services to do, till you require....
That god forbid, that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand the account of hours to crave, Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!...
Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd, To-morrow sharpened in his former might:...
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time....
Against my love shall be as I am now, With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn; When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn...
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye And all my soul, and all my every part; And for this sin there is no remedy, It is so grounded inward in my heart. Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,...
Is it thy will, thy image should keep open My heavy eyelids to the weary night? Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken, While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?...
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd, And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;...
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, Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend....
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend....
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,...
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, When beauty lived and died as flowers do now, Before these bastard signs of fair were born, Or durst inhabit on a living brow;...
Tired 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 honour shamefully misplac'd,...
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?...
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....