XCIX.

CIV. The forward violet thus did I chido;- (smells, To me, fair friend, you never can be old, Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that For as you were, when first your eye I eyed, If not from my love's breath? The purple pride

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters ca Which on thy sofi cheek for complexion dwells, Have from the forests shook three summers' pre In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd. Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd, The lily I condemned for thy hand,

In process of the seasons have I seen; And buds of marjoram had stolen ihy hair:

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. One blushing shame, another white despair ; Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial hand, A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd; And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath ; So your sweet hue, which methinks sull doth stand, But, for his thett, in pride of all his growth

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd : A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred, More flowers I notod, yet I none could see,

Ere you were born, was beauty's summer dead. But sweet or colour it had stolen from theé.

CV.
C.
Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long

Let not my love be callj idolatry,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?

Nor my beloved as an idol show, Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,

Since áll alike my songs and praises be, Darkening thy power, to lend base subjects light? To one, of one, still such, and ever so. Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, In gentle numbers time so idly spent;

Still constant in a wondrous excellence Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,

Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd, And gives thy pen both skill and argument. One thing expressing, leaves out difference. Rise, restive Muse, my love's sweet face survey,

Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument, If Time have any wrinkle graven there;

Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words; If any, be a satire to decay,

And in this change is my invention spent, And make Time's spoils despised every where.

Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords. Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life; Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone, So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife. Which three, till now, never kept seat in one. CI.

CVI. O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends,

When in the chronicle of wasted time For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd ?

I see descriptions of the fairest wighis, Both truth and beauty on my love depends; And beauty making beautiful old rhyme, So dost thou, too, and therein dignify'd.

In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights, Make answer, Muse : wilt thou not haply say, Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd; Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth no lay ;

I see their antique pen would have express'd But best is best, if never intermir'd ?"

Even such a heauty as you master now.
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb ? So all their praises are but prophecies
Excuse not silence so; for it lies in thee

Of this our lime, all you prefig:ring;
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb, And for they look'd but with divining eyes,
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.

They had not skill enough your worth to sing :
Then do thy otlice, Muse; I teach thee how For we which now behold these present days,
To make him seem long hence as he shows now. Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to prase.
CII.

CVII. My love is strengther'd, though more weak in seem- Not minc own fears, nor the prophetic soul I love not less, ihough less the show appear: [ing; of the wide world dreaming on things to come, That love is merchandis'd, whose rich esteeming Can yet the lease of my true love control, The owner's tongue doth publish every where. Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom. Our love was new, and then but in the spring, The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd, When I was wont to greet it with my lays ; And the sad augurs mock their own presage ; As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,

Incertainties now crown themselves assurd, And stops his pipe in growth of riper days; And peace proclaims olives of endless age. Not that the summer is less pleasant now

Now with the drops of this most balmy time Than when her mournfnl hymns did hush the night, My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes, But that wild music burdens every bough,

Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. While be insults o'er dull and speechless inibes: Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue, And thou in this shalt find thy monument, Bocause I' would not dull you with my song. When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. CIII.

CVIII. Alack! what poverty my muse brings forth, What's in the brain that ink may character, That having such a scope to show her pride, Which hath not figur'd 10 thee my true spirit? The argument, all bare, is of more worth,

What's new to speak, what new to register, Than when it hath my added praise beside. That may express my love, or thy dear merit? O, blame me not, if I no more can write !

Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine, Look in your glass, and there appears a face,

I must each day say o'er ihe very same ; That over-goes my blunt invention quite,

Counting no old thing old, ihou mine, I ihine Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.

Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name. Were it not sinful, then, striving to mend,

So that eternal love in love's free case To mar the subject that before was well ?

Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
For to no other pass my verses tend,

Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell; But makes antiquity for aye his
And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,

page;

Finding the first conceit of love there bred, Your own glass shows you, when you look in it. Where time and outward form would show it dead. SONNETS.

CIX.

1

CXIV. 0, never say that I was false of heart,

Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, Though absence seem'd my flamo to qualify. Drink

up

the monarch's plague, this flattery, As easy might I from myself depart,

Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true, As from my soul, which in thy breast doch lie : And that your love taught it this alchymy, That is my honie of love: if I have rang’d,

To make, of monsters and things indigest,
Like him ihat travels, I return again;

Such cherubims as your sweet self resemble;
Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd, - Creating every bad a perfect best,
So that myself bring water for my stain.

As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
Never believe, though in my nature reign'd O, 'tis the first ; 'tis flattery in my seeing,
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,

And my great mind most kingly drinks it up: Tha! il could so preposterously be stain'd, Mine eve well knows what with his gust is 'groeing, To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;

And to his palate doth prepare the cup: For nothing this wide universe I call,

If it be poison’d, 'tis the lesser sin Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

That mine eye loves it, and doth first begin. сх.

CXV. Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there,

Those lines that I before have writ do lie, And made myself a motley to the view ;

E'en those that said I could not love you dearer ; Gord mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most Yet then my judgment knew no reason why Made old offences of affections new :

[dear, My most full Hame should afterwards burn clearer. Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth

But reckoning time, whose million’d accidents
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,

Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings :

Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, And worse essays proy'd thee my best of love.

Divert strong minds to the course of altering things; Now all is done, save what shall have no end :

Alas! why, fearing of time's tyranny, Mine appetite I never more will grind

Might I not then say, nine I love you best, On newer proof, to try an older friend,

When I was certain o'er incertainty, A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.

Crowning the present, doublino of the rest; Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, Love is a babe: then michi I not say so, Even to thy pure and most, most loving breast.

To give full growth to that which still doth grow? CXI.

CXVI. O, for my sake, do with fortune chide,

Let me not to the marriage of true minds The guiliy goddess of my harmful deeds,

Admit impediments. Love is not love
That did not better for my life provide

Which aliers when it alteration finds,
Than public means, which public manners breeds. Or bends with the remover to remove :
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand; () no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
And almost thence my nature is subju'd

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:

It is the star to every wandering bark, (taken. Pity me then, and wish I were renewid ;

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be Whilst like a willing patient, I will drink

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Potions of eysell, 'gainst my strong infection; Withio his bending sickle's compass come; No bitterness that I will bitter think,

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, Nor double penance to correct correction.

But bears it cut e'en to the edge of doom.
Pity me, then, dear friend, and I assure ye, If this be error, and upon me prov'd,
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

you

CXII.

CXVII. Yonr love and pity doth the impression fill

Accuse me thus ; that I have scanted all Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow; Wherein I should your great deseris repay ; For what care I who calls me well or ill,

Forgot upon your dearesi love to call, So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow? Whereto all bonds do te me day by day; You are my all-the-world, and I must strive That I have frequent been with unknown minds, To know my shames and praises from your tongue; And given to time your own dear purchas'd right; None else to me, nor I to none alive,

That I have hoisted sail to all the winds That my steel'd sense or changes, right or wrong. Which should transport me farthest from your sight. In so profound abysm I throw all care

Book both my wilfulness and errors down, Of others' voices, that my adder's sense

And on just proof, surmise accumulate, To crilic and to flatterer stopped are.

Bring me within the level of your frown, Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:

But shoot not at me in your waken'd bate: You are so strongly in my purpose bred,

Since my appeal says, I did strive to prove That all the world besides me thinks they are dead. The constancy and virtue of your love. СХІІІ.

CXVIII.
Since I left

you,
mine
eye
is in my mind;

Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
And that which governs rae to go about,

With eager compounds we our palate urge, Doth part his function, and is partly blind,

As, to prevent our maladies unseen, Seems seeing, but effectually is out :

We sicken to shun sickness, when we purge; For it no form delivers to the heart

E'en so, being full of your ne'er cloying sweetness, Of bird, of Power, or shape, which it doth latch ; To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding, Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch; To be diseas’d, ere that there was true needing, For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,

Thus policy in love, to anticipate The most sweet favour, or deformed'st creature, The ills that were not, grew 10 faults assured, 'The mountain or the sea, the day or night, And brought to medicine a healthful state, The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature: Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured Incapable of more, replete with you,

But thence I learn, and find the lesson true, My most truo mal thus maketh mine untrue. Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

588

SONNETS

yours, and

CXIX.

CXXIV. What potions have I drunk of Syren tears,

If my dear love were but the child of state, Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within, It might for fortune's bastard be unfather'd, Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,

As subject to Time's love, or to Time's hate, Still losing when I saw myself io win!

Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers What wretched errors hath my heart committed,

gather'd. Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!

No, it was builded far from accident; How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, It suffers not in smiling, pomp, nor falls In the distraction of this madding fever!

Under the blow of thralled discontent, O benefit of ill! now I find true

Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls: That better is by evil still made better;

It fears not policy, that heretic,
And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,

Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. But all alone stands hugely politic,
So I return rebuk'd to my content,

That it nor grows with beal, por drowns with And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.

showers.

To this I witness call the fools of time,
CXX.

Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

CXXV.
That you were once unkind, befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, Were it aught to me I bore the canopy,
Needs must I under my transgression bow, With my extern the outward honouring,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel, Or laid great bases for eternity,
For if you were by my unkindness shaken, Which prove more short than waste or ruining ?
As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of ume; Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent;
To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime. For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,
O that our night of wo might have remember'd Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent ?
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits, No ;-let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
The humble salve which wounded bosums fits! Which is not mix'd with seconds,' knows no art,
But that your trespass now becomes a fee; But mutual render, only me for thee.
Mine ransoms
yours must ransom me. Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul,

When most impeachd, stands least in thy control.
CXXI.

CXXVI. 'Tis better to be vile, than vile esteem'd,

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
When not to be receives reproach of being, Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.

Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st;
For why should others' false adulterate eyes If nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
Give salutation to my sportive blood ?

As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill Which in their wills count bad what I think good ? May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill. No,-I am that I am; and they that level

Yet fear her, 0, thou minion of her pleasure;
At my abuses, reckon up their own:

She may detain, but not still keep her treasure :
I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel ; Her audit, though delay’d, answer'd must be,
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown; And her quietus is to render thee.
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad, and in their badness reign.

CXXVII.

In the old age black was not counted fair,
CXXII.

Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

But now is black beauty's successive heir, Full character'd with lasting memory,

And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame: Which shall above that idle rank remain,

For since each hand hath put on nature's power, Beyond all date, even to eternity:

Fairing the foul with art's false-borrow'd face, Or at the least so long as brain and heart

Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy hour, Have faculty by nature to subsist:

But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace. Till each to razed oblivion yield his part

Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black, Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.

Her eyes so suited; and they mourners seem
That poor retention could not so much hold, At such, who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Nor need I tallies, thy dear love to score ;

Siandering creation with a false esteem:
Therefore to give them from me was I bold, Yet so they mourn, becoming of their wo,
To trust those tables that receive thee more : That every tongue says, beauty should look so.
To keep an adjunct to remember thee,

CXXVIII.
Were to import forgetfulness in me.

How ofi, when thou, my music, music play'st,

Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
CXXIII.

With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change : The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Thy pyramids built up with newer might

Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;

To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
They are but dressings of a former sight.

Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest teap.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
And rather make them born to our desire,

To be so tickled, they would change their state

And situation with those dancing chips,
Than think that we before have heard them told. O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wondering at the present nor the past;

Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.
For thy records and what we see do lie,

Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, Made more or less by thy continual hasto :

Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. This I do vo'v, and this shall ever be,

1. Which is not mix'd with seconds.'--Seconds is a I will bo true, despite thy scythe and thee.

provincial tern for the serond kind of four, which is
collected after the smaller bran is silted. --Steedens.

CXXIX.

CXXXIV. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

So now I have confess'd that he is thine, Is lust in action ; and till action, lust

And I myself am mortgag'd to thy will; Es perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still: Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight;

But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had,

For thou art covetous, and he is kind; Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bail,

He learn'd but, surety-like, to write for me, Dn purpose laid to make the taker mad:

Under that bond that him as fast doth bind. Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;

The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;

Thou usurer, thai put'st forth all to use, A bliss in proof, -and prov'd a very wo;

And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake;
Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream:

So hin I lose through my unkind abuse.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me;
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.
CXXX.

CXXXV.
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will, Coral is far more red than her lips' red :

And will to boot, and will in overplus:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,

More than enough am I that vex thee still,
It hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. To thy sweet will making addition thus.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine ? And in some perfumes is there more delight

Shall will in others seem right gracious, Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. And in my will no fair acceptance shine ? I love to hear her speak,-yet well I know

The sea, all water, yet receives rain still, That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

And in abundance addeth to his store;
I grant I never saw a goddess go,

So thou, being rich in will, add to thy will
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: One will of mine, to make thy large will more.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill:
As any she, bely'd with false compare.

Think all but one, and me in that one Will.
CXXXI.

CXXXVI.

If thy soul check thee that I come so near, Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,

Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will, As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;

And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there ; For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart

Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.

Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love, Yet, in good faith, some say, that thee behold,

Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one, Thy face hath not the power to make love groan:

In things of great receipt with ease we prove ; To say they err, I dare not be so bold,

Among a number one is reckon'd none.
Although I swear it to myself alone.

Then in the number let me pass untold,
And, to be sure that is not false I swear,
A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,

Though in thy store's account I one must be :
One on another's neck, do witness bear,

For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold

That nothing me, a something sweet to thee; Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.

Make but my name thy love, and love that still, In nothing art thou black, save in thy deeds, And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.

And then thou lov'st me,-for my name is Will.

CXXXVII.
CXXXII.
Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,

Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,

That they behold, and see not what they see?
Knowing thy heart, torment me with disdain ;
Have put on black, and loving mourners be,

They know what beauty is, see where it lies,

Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven

If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks,

Be anchord in the bay where all men ride, Better becomes the gray cheeks of the east,

Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks, Nor that full star that ushers in the even, Doth half that glory to the sober west,

Whereto ihe judgment of my heart is tied ?

Why should my heart think that a several plot, As those two mourning eyes become thy face:

Which my heart knows the wide world's common 0, let it then as well beseem thy heart

place? To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace, And suit thy pity like in every part.

Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not ? Then will I swear, beauty herself is black,

To put fair truth upon so foul a face? And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd

And to this false plague are they now transferrd. CXXXIII.

CXXXVIII. Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan When my love swears that she is made of truth, For that deep wound it gives my friend and me! I do believe her, though I know she lies; Is'ı not enough to torture me alone,

That she might think me some untutor'd youth, But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be ? Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, And my next self thou harder hast engross'd; Although she knows my days are past the best, or hirn, myself, and thee, I am forsaken ;

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue; A torrent ihrice threefold thus to be cross'd.

On both sides thus is simple truth supprest,
Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,

But wherefore says she not, she is unjust?
But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail; And wherefore say not I, that I am old ?
Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard; O love's best habit is in seeming trust,
Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol;
And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,

And age in love loves not to have years told.

Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.

And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

CXXXIX.

CXLIV.
O call not me to justify the wrong,

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue ; The better angel'is a man right fair,

Which like two spirits do suggest me still ;
Use power with power, and slay me not by art.

The worser spirit a woman, colour'd ill.
Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,

To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside.
What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,

Tempteth my better angel from my side,
might

Wooing his purity with her foul pride. Is more than my o'erpress'd defence can 'bide ?

And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend, Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows

Suspect I may, yet not directly tell ; Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;

But being both from me, both io each friend, And therefore from my face she turns my foes, I That they elsewhere might dart their injuries :

guess one angel in another's hell.

Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,

Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain

CXLV.
CXL.
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

Those lips that Love's own hand did make,

Breath'd forth the sound that said, I hate,
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain ;
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express

To me that languish'd for her sake:

But when she saw my woful state,
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

Straight in her heart did mercy come,
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;

Chiding that tongue, that ever sweet

Was usd in giving gentle doom; (As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,

And taught it thus a-new to greet; No news but health from their physicians know;)

I hate she alter'd with an end,
For if I should despair, I should grow mad,

That follow'd it as gentle day
And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

Doth follow night, who, like a fiend,

From heaven to hell is flown away;
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

I hate from hate away she threw,

And sav'd my life, saying-not you.
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go
wide.

CXLVI.
CXLI.
In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array, For they in thee a thousand errors note;

Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth, But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote,
Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted : Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend ?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Nor tender feeling, to base touches

prone,

Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Nor taste nor smell, desire to be invited

Eat up thy charge ? Is thy body's end? To any sensual feast with thee alone:

Then, soul, live ihou upon thy servant's loss, But my five wits, nor my five senses can

And let that pine to aggravate thy store ; Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,

Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; Who lives unsway'd the likeness of a man,

Within be fed, without be rich no more: Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be ;

So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men, Only my plague thus far I count my gain, That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.

And, death once dead, there's no more dying thes.

CXLVII.
CXLII.
Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,

My love is as a fever, longing still
Hale of my sin, grounded on sinful loving;

For that which longer nurseth the disease; O but with mine compare thou thine own state,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,

The uncertain sickly appetite to please. Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,

My reason, the physician to my love, That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments,

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, And seald false bonds of love as oft as mine ;

Hath left me, and I desperate now approve, Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents;

Desire is death, which physic did except. Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovest those

Past cure I am, now reason is past care,

And frantic-mad with ever-more unrest;
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows,

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,

At random from the truth vainly express'd ;
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee brigh By self-example may'st thou be denied !

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
CXLIII.

CXLVIII.
Lo, as a careful house-wife runs to catch

O me! what eyes hath love put in my head, One of her feather'd creatures broke away,

Which have no correspondence with true sight! Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, In pursuit of the thing she would have stay, That censures falsely what ihey see aright? Whilst her neglected child holds her in chace, If that be fair whereon my false eyes dole, Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent

What means the world to say it is not so ? To follow that which flies before her face,

If it be not, then love doth well denote Not prizing her poor infant's discontent ;

Love's eye is not so true as all men's; no, So runn'st thou after that which fies from thee, How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true, Whilst I, thy babe, chace thee afar behind ; That is so vex'd with watching and with tears? But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me, No marvel, then, though I mistake my view; And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind : The sun itself sees not, will heaven clears. So will I pray that thou may'st have thy will, O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind, If thou turn back and my loud crying still. Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.