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!...
My love is strengthen'd, 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....
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,...
O! from what power hast thou this powerful might, With insufficiency my heart to sway? To make me give the lie to my true sight, And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?...
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?...
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, Supposed as forfeit to a confin'd doom....
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,...
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, Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?...
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...
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....
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,...
Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving: O! but with mine compare thou thine own state, And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;...
In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note; But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise, Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote....
O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head, Which have no correspondence with true sight; Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, That censures falsely what they see aright?...
My love is as a fever longing still, For that which longer nurseth the disease; Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love,...
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, My sinful earth these rebel powers array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?...
Those lips that Love's own hand did make, Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate', To me that languish'd for her sake: But when she saw my woeful state, Straight in her heart did mercy come,...
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;...
Like as, to make our appetite more keen, With eager compounds we our palate urge; As, to prevent our maladies unseen, We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;...