AMOR OMNIA VINCIT WHEN, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least ; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings. REMEMBRANCE WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear Friend, All losses are restored, and sorrows end. 86 SONGS AND SONNETS ALL-CONTAINING LOVE THY bosom is endeared with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposéd dead, And there reigns love and all love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, Who all their parts of me to thee did give, That due of many now is thine alone : Their images I loved I view in thee, OF SHAKESPEARE 87 THE VITAL FORCE IF thou survive my well-contented day, shall cover, And shalt by fortune once more re-survey Compare them with the bettering of the time, O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: 'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, A dearer birth than this his love had brought, To march in ranks of better equipage : But since he died, and poets better prove, Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.' ULL FU SUNSHINE AND CLOUD many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; Anon permit the basest clouds to ride Even so my sun one early morn did shine Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth. |