LIFE CONTINUED

LOOK in thy glass, and tell the face thou

viewest

Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime:

So thou through windows of thine age shalt see
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.

But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

CHILDLESSNESS

UNTHRIFTY loveliness, why dost thou spend Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?

Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free.

Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give! Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?

For having traffic with thyself alone,

Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
Then how, when nature calls thee to begone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave ?

Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee, Which, used, lives th' executor to be.

CHANGE AND CONTINUANCE

HOSE hours, that with gentle work did frame

THO

The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,

Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;

For never-resting time leads summer on

To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap check'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where :

Then, were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was :

But flowers distill'd, though they with winter

meet,

Leese but their show; their substance still lives

sweet.

PERPETUATION

HEN let not winter's ragged hand deface

THEN

In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:

Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.

That use is not forbidden usury

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee :

Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair

To be death's conquest and make worms thine

heir.

OF SHAKESPEARE

63

FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET

O! in the orient when the gracious light

LO

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, Serving with looks his sacred majesty ;

And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill, Resembling strong youth in his middle age, Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, Attending on his golden pilgrimage;

But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:

So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,
Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.