That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming
The owner's tongue doth publish every where 7.
Our love was new3, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in fummer's front doth fing,
And ftops 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 lose their dear delight.

6 That love is merchandiz'd,-] This expreffion may ferve to fupport the old reading of a paffage in Macbeth:

"the feaft is fold

"That is not often vouch'd," &c.

where Pope would read cold. MALONE.

7 That love is merchandiz'd, whofe rich efteeming

The owner's tongue doth publish every where.] So, in Love's La bour's Loft:

66 -my beauty, though but mean,

"Needs not the painted flourish of your praife:
"Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,

"Not utter'd by bale fale of chapmen's tongues."

8 Our love was new,] See p. 220, n. 8. MALONE.

C.

9 As Philomel in fummer's front dotb fing,] In the begining of fummer. So, in Othello:

"The very head and front of my offending

"Hath this extent."

Again, more appofitely, in the Winter's Tale: "-no fhepherdess, but Flora,

"Peering in April's front."

Again, in Coriolanus: "one that converfes more with the buttock of the night than the forebead of the morning." We meet with a kindred expreffion in K. Henry IV. P. II:

"-thou art a fummer bird,

"Which ever in the baunch of winter fings
"The lifting up of day." MALONE.

1 Not that the fummer is lefs pleasant now

Than when her mournful bymns did bush the night,

But that wild mufick burdens every bougb,] So, in The Mer

ebant of Venice:

"The nightingale, if she should fing by day,

"When every goofe is cackling, would be thought

"No better a mufician than the wren." C.

their dear delight.] This epithet has been adopted by Pope: "Peace is my dear delight, not Fleury's more." MALONE.

T 2

Therefore

Alack! what poverty my mufe bri That having fuch a fcope to show h The argument, all bare, is of more Than when it hath my added praif O, blame me not, if I no more can Look in your glass, and there appe That over-goes my blunt invention Dulling my lines, and doing me di Were it not finful then, ftriving to n To mar the subject that before was w For to no other pass my verses tend, Than of your graces and your gifts to And more, much more, than in m Your own glass shows you, when y

Three beauteous fprings to yellow autumn turn'd,
In process of the feafons have I feen;

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I faw 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 sweet 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 idol show,
Since all alike my fongs and praises be,
To one, of one, Rill fuch, and ever fo.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still conftant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verfe 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.

Three beauteous fprings to yellow autumn turn'd,] So, in Macbeth: my way of life

66

"Is fallen into the fear, the yellow leaf." MALONE.

7 Ab! yet doth beauty, like a dial-band,

Steal from bis figure, and no pace perceiv'd ;] So, before:
"Thou by thy dial's fhady ftealth may know

"Time's thievifh progrefs to eternity."

Again, in K. Richard III:

"-mellow'd by the ftealing hours of time." MALONE,

8 So your feet bue, which methinks still doth stand, Hatb motion,-] So, in The Winter's Tale:

"The fixure of her eye hath motion in it." MALONE. Again, in Othello:

"To point his flow, unmoving finger at." STEEVENS.

CVI.

When in the chronicle of wafted time
I fee descriptions of the faireft wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praife of ladies dead, and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's beft,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I fee their antique pen would have exprefs'd
Even fuch a beauty as you mafter now'.
So all their praifes are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,
They had not kill enough your worth to fing2:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praife,

CVII.

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetick foul 3
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the leafe of my true love control,
Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.

The mortal moon hath her eclipfe endur'd,
And the fad augurs mock their own prefages;

9 Then, in the blazon of fweet beauty's beft,

Of band, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,] So, in Twelfth Night; "Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, &c.

"Do give thee five-fold blazon." STEEVENS.

fuch a beauty as you mafter now.] So, in K. Henry V:
Between the promife of his greener days,

"And thofe he mafters now."

STEEVENS.

2 They bad not skill enough your worth to fing:] The old copy has; They had not fill enough. For the prefent emendation the reader is indebted to Mr. Tyrwhitt. MALONE.

3 the prophetick foul-] So, in Hamlet:

"Oh my propbetick foul! mine uncle."

STEEVENS.

4 The mortal moon bath ber eclipfe endur'd,] So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

Alas, our terrene moon is now eclips'd!" STEEVENS. 5 And the fad augurs mock their own prefage,] I fuppofe he means that they laugh at the futility of their own predictions. STEEVENS. Incertainties

Incertainties now crown themselves affur'd,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and death to me fubfcribes,
Since, fpite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he infults o'er dull and fpeechless tribes":
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,

When tyrant's crefts and tombs of brafs are spent.

CVIII.

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 new to register?,
That may exprefs my love, or thy dear merit?
Nothing, fweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must each day fay o'er the very same;
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love's fresh case

Weighs not the duft and injury of age,
Nor gives to neceffary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page;

Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would fhow it dead.

-and death to me subscribes,

Since, fpite of bim, I'll live in this poor rhyme,

While be infults o'er dull and speechless tribes :] To fubfcribe, is to acknowledge as a fuperior; to obey. So, in Troilus and Creffidae "For Hector in his blaze of wrath fubfcribes

To tender objects." MALONE.

So, in Dr. Young's Bufiris:

"Like death, a folitary king I'll reign,

"O'er filent fubjects and a defert plain." STEEVENS. 7-uhat new to regifler,] The quarto is here manifeftly erre

neous.

It reads:

-what now to regifter. MALONE.

8-in love's fresh cafe,] By the cafe of love the post means his own compofitions. MALONE.

9 Weighs not the duft, &c.] A paffage in Love's Labour's Loft will at once exemplify and explain this phrase:

"You weigh me not,-O, that's you care not for me." STEEV.

T 4

CIX. O,