Part 4

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, Still constant in a wondrous excellence; Therefore my verse to constancy confin’d, One thing expressing, 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 scope affords. Fair, kind, and true, have often liv’d alone, Which three till now, never kept seat in one.

CVI

When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rime, In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express’d Even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring; And for they looked but with divining eyes, They had not skill enough your worth to sing: For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

CVII

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. The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur’d, And the sad augurs mock their own presage; Incertainties now crown themselves assur’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 subscribes, Since, spite of him, I’ll live in this poor rime, While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes: And thou in this shalt find thy monument, When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass 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 now to register, That may express my love, or thy dear merit? Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine, I must each day say 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 dust and injury of age, Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, But makes antiquity for aye his page; Finding the first conceit of love there bred, Where time and outward form would show it dead.

CIX

O! never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify, As easy might I from my self depart As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie: That is my home of love: if I have rang’d, Like him that travels, I return again; Just to the time, not with the time exchang’d, So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe though in my nature reign’d, All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stain’d, To leave for nothing all thy sum of good; For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

CX

Alas! ’tis true, I have gone here and there, And made my self a motley to the view, Gor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new; Most true it is, that I have look’d on truth Askance and strangely; but, by all above, These blenches gave my heart another youth, And worse essays prov’d thee my best of love. Now all is done, save what shall have no end: Mine appetite I never more will grind On newer proof, to try an older friend, A god in love, to whom I am confin’d. Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

CXI

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. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdu’d To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand: Pity me, then, and wish I were renew’d; Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink, Potions of eisel ’gainst my strong infection; No bitterness that I will bitter think, Nor double penance, to correct correction. Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye, Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

CXII

Your love and pity doth the impression fill, Which vulgar scandal stamp’d upon my brow; For what care I who calls me well or ill, So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow? You are my all-the-world, and I must strive To know my shames and praises from your tongue; None else to me, nor I to none alive, That my steel’d sense or changes right or wrong. In so profound abysm I throw all care Of others’ voices, that my adder’s sense To critic and to flatterer stopped are. Mark how with my neglect I do dispense: You are so strongly in my purpose bred, That all the world besides methinks are dead.

CXIII

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 Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch: Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch; For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight, The most sweet favour or deformed’st creature, The mountain or the sea, the day or night: The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature. Incapable of more, replete with you, My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.

CXIV

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, To make of monsters and things indigest Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, Creating every bad a perfect best, As fast as objects to his beams assemble? O! ’tis the first, ’tis flattery in my seeing, And my great mind most kingly drinks it up: Mine eye well knows what with his gust is ’greeing, And to his palate doth prepare the cup: If it be poison’d, ’tis the lesser sin That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

CXV

Those lines that I before have writ do lie, Even those that said I could not love you dearer: Yet then my judgement knew no reason why My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer. But reckoning Time, whose million’d accidents Creep in ’twixt vows, and change decrees of kings, Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents, Divert strong minds to the course of altering things; Alas! why fearing of Time’s tyranny, Might I not then say, ‘Now I love you best,’ When I was certain o’er incertainty, Crowning the present, doubting of the rest? Love is a babe, then might I not say so, To give full growth to that which still doth grow?

CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

CXVII

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; That I have frequent been with unknown minds, And given to time your own dear-purchas’d right; That I have hoisted sail to all the winds Which should transport me farthest from your sight. Book both my wilfulness and errors down, And on just proof surmise, accumulate; Bring me within the level of your frown, But shoot not at me in your waken’d hate; Since my appeal says I did strive to prove The constancy and virtue of your love.

CXVIII

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; Even so, being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness, To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding; And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness To be diseas’d, ere that there was true needing. Thus policy in love, to anticipate The ills that were not, grew to faults assur’d, And brought to medicine a healthful state Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur’d; But thence I learn and find the lesson true, Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

CXIX

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, Distill’d from limbecks foul as hell within, Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, Still losing when I saw myself to win! What wretched errors hath my heart committed, Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never! How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, In the distraction of this madding fever! O benefit of ill! now I find true That better is, by evil still made better; And ruin’d love, when it is built anew, Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. So I return rebuk’d to my content, And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.

CXX

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. For if you were by my unkindness shaken, As I by yours, you’ve pass’d a hell of time; And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken To weigh how once I suffer’d in your crime. O! that our night of woe might have remember’d My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits, And soon to you, as you to me, then tender’d The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits! But that your trespass now becomes a fee; Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

CXXI

’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: For why should others’ false adulterate eyes Give salutation to my sportive blood? Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, Which in their wills count bad what I think good? No, I am that I am, and they that level At my abuses reckon up their own: I may be straight though they themselves be bevel; By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown; Unless this general evil they maintain, All men are bad and in their badness reign.

CXXII

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 Have faculty by nature to subsist; Till each to raz’d oblivion yield his part Of thee, thy record never can be miss’d. That poor retention could not so much hold, Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score; Therefore to give them from me was I bold, To trust those tables that receive thee more: To keep an adjunct to remember thee Were to import forgetfulness in me.

CXXIII

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. Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old; And rather make them born to our desire Than think that we before have heard them told. Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present nor the past, For thy records and what we see doth lie, Made more or less by thy continual haste. This I do vow and this shall ever be; I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.

CXXIV

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. No, it was builded far from accident; It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent, Whereto th’ inviting time our fashion calls: It fears not policy, that heretic, Which works on leases of short-number’d hours, But all alone stands hugely politic, That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers. To this I witness call the fools of time, Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

CXXV

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 Lose all and more by paying too much rent For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour, Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent? No; let me be obsequious in thy heart, And take thou my oblation, poor but free, Which is not mix’d with seconds, knows no art, But mutual render, only me for thee. Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul When most impeach’d, stands least in thy control.

CXXVI

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. If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back, She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill. Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure! She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure: Her audit (though delayed) answered must be, And her quietus is to render thee.

CXXVII

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: For since each hand hath put on Nature’s power, Fairing the foul with Art’s false borrowed face, Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower, But is profan’d, if not lives in disgrace. Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black, Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack, Sland’ring creation with a false esteem: Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe, That every tongue says beauty should look so.

CXXVIII

How oft when thou, my music, music play’st, Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap, To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap, At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand! To be so tickled, they would change their state And situation with those dancing chips, O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, Making dead wood more bless’d than living lips. Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

CXXIX

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action: and till action, lust Is perjur’d, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hunted; and no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait, On purpose laid to make the taker mad: Mad in pursuit and in possession so; Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme; A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy propos’d; behind a dream. All this the world well knows; yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

CXXX

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red, than her lips red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound: I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, As any she belied with false compare.

CXXXI

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel; For well thou know’st to my dear doting heart Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel. Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold, Thy face hath not the power to make love groan; To say they err I dare not be so bold, Although I swear it to myself alone. And to be sure that is not false I swear, A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face, One on another’s neck, do witness bear Thy black is fairest in my judgement’s place. In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds, And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.

CXXXII

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, Have put on black and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. And truly not the morning sun of heaven Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, Nor that full star that ushers in the even, Doth half that glory to the sober west, As those two mourning eyes become thy face: O! let it then as well beseem thy heart To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace, And suit thy pity like in every part. Then will I swear beauty herself is black, And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

CXXXIII

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? Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken, And my next self thou harder hast engross’d: Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken; A torment thrice three-fold thus to be cross’d: Prison my heart in thy steel bosom’s ward, But then my friend’s heart let my poor heart bail; Whoe’er keeps me, let my heart be his guard; Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail: And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee, Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.

CXXXIV

So, now I have confess’d that he is thine, And I my self am mortgag’d to thy will, Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still: But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, For thou art covetous, and he is kind; He learn’d but surety-like to write for me, Under that bond that him as fast doth bind. The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, Thou usurer, that putt’st forth all to use, And sue a friend came debtor for my sake; So him I lose through my unkind abuse. Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me: He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

CXXXV

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy ‘Will,’ And ‘Will’ to boot, and ‘Will’ in over-plus; More than enough am I that vex’d thee still, To thy sweet will making addition thus. Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? Shall will in others seem right gracious, And in my will no fair acceptance shine? The sea, all water, yet receives rain still, And in abundance addeth to his store; So thou, being rich in ‘Will,’ add to thy ‘Will’ One will of mine, to make thy large will more. Let no unkind ‘No’ fair beseechers kill; Think all but one, and me in that one ‘Will.’

CXXXVI

If thy soul check thee that I come so near, Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy ‘Will’, And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there; Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. ‘Will’, will fulfil the treasure of thy love, Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. In things of great receipt with ease we prove Among a number one is reckon’d none: Then in the number let me pass untold, Though in thy store’s account I one must be; For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold That nothing me, a something sweet to thee: Make but my name thy love, and love that still, And then thou lov’st me for my name is ‘Will.’

CXXXVII

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. If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks, Be anchor’d in the bay where all men ride, Why of eyes’ falsehood hast thou forged hooks, Whereto the judgement of my heart is tied? Why should my heart think that a several plot, Which my heart knows the wide world’s common place? Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not, To put fair truth upon so foul a face? In things right true my heart and eyes have err’d, And to this false plague are they now transferr’d.

CXXXVIII

When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutor’d youth, Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although she knows my days are past the best, Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue: On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed: But wherefore says she not she is unjust? And wherefore say not I that I am old? O! love’s best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love, loves not to have years told: Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.

CXXXIX