THE UNFADING PICTURE SHALL I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate : Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May And summer's lease hath all too short a date : Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade When in eternal lines to time thou growest : So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, OF SHAKESPEARE 75 THAT TIME SHOULD SPARE HIS FRIEND DEVOURING Time, blunt thou the lion's paws, And make the earth devour her own sweet brood; Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood; Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets, O, carve not with thy hours my Love's fair brow Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen; Him in thy course untainted do allow For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong, My Love shall in my verse ever live young. FOR PRAISE NOT COMPLIMENT So is it not with me as with that Muse Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, Making a couplement of proud compare With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems. O, let me, true in love, but truly write, Let them say more that like of hearsay well; LOVE EQUALIZES HEARTS MY glass shall not persuade me I am old, So long as youth and thou are of one date; But when in thee time's furrows I behold Then look I death my days should expiate. For all that beauty that doth cover thee O, therefore, Love, be of thyself so wary Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain ; Thou gav'st me thine, not to give back again. As LOVE'S SPEECH AND SILENCE S an unperfect actor on the stage Who with his fear is put besides his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart, So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love's rite, And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might. O, let my books be then the eloquence O, learn to read what silent love hath writ : |