Page images
PDF
EPUB

XCVI.

Some fay thy fault is youth, fome wantonness,
Some fay thy grace is youth and gentle sport;

Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and lefs:
Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee refort.
As on the finger of a throned queen

The baseft jewel will be well esteem'd;
So are thofe errors that in thee are seen,

To truths translated, and for true things deem'd.
How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
If like a lamb he could his looks tranflate!
How many gazers might'ft thou lead away,
If thou would'st use the ftrength of all thy state!
But do not fo; I love thee in fuch fort,

As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

XCVII.

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days feen?
What old December's bareness every where !
And yet this time remov'd was summer's time;
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:
Yet this abundant iffue feem'd to me
But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit ;
For fummer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or, if they fing, 'tis with fo dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

XCVIII.

From you
have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, drefs'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing;
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any fummer's story tell,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lilies white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but fweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet feem'd it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play :

XCIX.

The forward violet thus did I chide ;

Sweet thief, whence didft thou steal thy fweet that smells,

If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy foft cheek for complexion dwells,
In my love's veins thou haft too grofsly dy❜d.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair :
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both,
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;
But for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could fee,
But fweet or colour it had ftolen from thee.

C.

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'ft thou thy fury on fome worthless fong,
Darkening thy power, to lend bafe fubjects light?
Return, forgetful Mufe, and straight redeem

In gentle numbers time fo idly spent ;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rife, reftive Mufe, my love's fweet face furvey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;

If

any, be a fatire to decay,

And make Time's fpoils defpifed every where.
Give my love fame faster than Time waftes life
So thou prevent❜ft his fcythe, and crooked knife.

CI.

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 dignify'd.
Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd,
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:
But beft is beft, if never intermix'd?—

Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excufe not filence fo; for it lies in thee

To make him much out-live a gilded tomb,
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.

Then do thy office, Mufe; I teach thee how

To make him feem long hence as he shows now.

CII.

My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming ;
I love not lefs, though less the show appear:
That love is merchandiz'd, whofe rich esteeming
The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
Our love was new, and then but in the fpring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in fummer's front doth fing,
And stops his pipe in growth of riper days:
Not that the fummer is lefs pleasant now

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild mufick burdens every bough,

And sweets grown common lofe their dear delight.
Therefore, like her, I fometime hold my tongue,
Because I would not dull you with my fong.

СІІІ.

Alack! what poverty my mufe 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 befide.
O blame me not if I no more can write !

Look in your glass, and there appears a face
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
Were it not finful then, ftriving to mend,
To mar the fubject that before was well?
For to no other pass my verses tend,
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;

And more, much more, than in my verse can fit,
Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.

4

CIV.

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were, when first your eye I ey'd,

[ocr errors]

Such feems your beauty ftill. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three fummers' pride;
Three beauteous fprings to yellow autumn turn'd,
In procefs of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd,

So

your fweet hue, which methinks ftill doth ftand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd.

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,
Ere you were born was beauty's fummer dead.

CV.

Let not my love be call'd idolatry,

Nor

my beloved as an idle show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be,
To one, of one, ftill fuch, and ever fo.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still conftant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to conftancy confin'd,
One thing expreffing, leaves out difference.
Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,

Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words;

And in this change is my invention spent,

Three themes in one, which wondrous fcope affords. Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone, Which three, till now, never kept feat in one.

« PreviousContinue »