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 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,...
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,...
Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep: A maid of Dian's this advantage found, And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;...
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?...
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,...
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 alchemy,...
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain; Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express The manner of my pity-wanting pain....
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....
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....
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...
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd, When not to be receives reproach of being; And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:...
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....
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 hammer'd steel....
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 slander'd with a bastard shame:...
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour; Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st....
Were't aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which proves more short than waste or ruining? Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour...
Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me! Is't not enough to torture me alone, But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?...
Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes, That they behold, and see not what they see? They know what beauty is, see where it lies, Yet what the best is take the worst to be....
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now, Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held:...