OF SHAKESPEARE

109

THE TRUE AND THE FALSE

How much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth

give!

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live :

The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfuméd tincture of the roses,

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their maskéd buds dis-
closes :

But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:

And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth.

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory.

Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find

room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

OF SHAKESPEARE

III

EBB AND FLOW

WEET Love, renew thy force; be it not said

SWEET

Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,

Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,

To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might :

So, Love, be thou; although to-day thou fill
Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness.
To-morrow see again, and do not kill

The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.

Let this sad interim like the ocean be

Which parts the shore, where two contracted new

Come daily to the banks, that, when they see
Return of love, more blest may be the view;

Else call it winter, which being full of care Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd,

more rare.

112

SONGS AND SONNETS

ABSENCE

BEING your slave, what should I do but tend

Upon the hours and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu ;

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.

So true a fool is love, that in your will
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

OF SHAKESPEARE

113

SUBMISSION ABSOLUTE

THAT god forbid that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of

pleasure,

Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!

O let me suffer, being at your beck,

The imprison'd absence of your liberty;

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check, Without accusing you of injury.

Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.

I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

I