XCIII.

So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband; so love's face
May still seem love to me, though alter'd-new;
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.
In many's looks the false heart's history

Is writ, in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange;a
But heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;
Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness
tell.

How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!

XCIV.

They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die;
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester sinell far worse than weeds.b

XCV.

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!*
O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise;
Naming thy name blesses an ill-report.
O, what a mansion have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee,d
Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turn to fair, that eyes can see!
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lose his edge.

XCVI.

Some say, thy fault is youth, some, wanton
Some say, thy grace is youth and gentle spe..
Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and's
Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.
As on the finger of a throned queen
The basest jewel will be well esteem'd,
So are those errors that in thee are seen
To truths translated, and for true things deen!
How many lambs might the stern wolf bety
If like a lamb he could his looks translate!
How many gazers mightst thou lead away,
If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy saz
But do not so; I love thee in such sort,
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good reper

XCVII.

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year
What freezings have I felt, what dark days L
What old December's bareness everywhere!
And yet this time remov'd was summer's tim
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' deceas
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or, if they sing, 't is with so dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's

XCVIII.

From you have I been absent in the spring.
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his tr
Had put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smel
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell
Or from their proud lap pluck them where th
grew:

Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you,-you pattern of all those.

f

Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away, As with your shadow I with these did play

"The more and less came in with cap and knee." But do not so; I love thee in such sort, As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report) Sonnet XXXVI. concludes with the same couplet.

g this time remov'd-] This time when I was remote, from thee.

h

The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,-} "Increase" is produce; and the "prime" means the spring. pare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act II. Sc. 1,"The spring, the summer,

The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which

i When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,-] Pied. many-coloured. The line recalls a charming passage in "E and Juliet," Act I. Sc. 2,

"Such comfort, as do lusty young men feel,
When well-apparell'd April on the heel
Of limping winter treads."

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forgett'st so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power, to lend base subjects light?
Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time so idly spent ;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satired to decay,

And make Time's spoils despised everywhere.

Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life; So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.

CI.

O, truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
"Truth needs no colour with his colour fix'd;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix'd?".
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so; for 't lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb,
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.

Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

CII.

My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear;
That love is merchandiz'd whose rich esteeming
The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere.
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the
night,

But that wild music burdens every bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.h
Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue,
Because I would not dull you with my song.

CIII.

Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument, all bare, is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside!
O, blame me not, if I no more can write !
Look in your glass, and there appears a face
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful, then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was vell?
For to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;
And more, much more, than in your verse can
sit,

Your own glass shows you when you look in it.

CIV.

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters' cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumu turn'd
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd!*
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd:

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,—
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

CV.

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 rhyme
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,b
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 look'd 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.

с

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,
Suppos'd 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 rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:

d

e-skill enough-] An emendation due to Tyrwhitt, the old copy having, "still enough.”

dand Death to me subscribes,-] That is, succumbs. So in Troilus and Cressida," Act IV. Sc. 5,

"For Hector, in his blaze of wrath, subscribes
To tender objects."

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 new 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 myself 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 ; f
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, 't is true I have gone here and there,
And made myself 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, have 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.

e What's new to speak, what new to register.- So Malune, and perhaps rightly though some editors still follow the quarto la reading, "what now to register."

f

That is my home of love: if I have rang'd,
Like him that travels, I return again;]

Compare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act III. Sc. 2,-
"My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'ā -
And now to Helen is it home return'd.'

And made myself a motley-] As a motley dress was the usual garb of a jester, motley became in time the synonym for a fool. h Now all is done, have what shall have no end:] Malone. adopting a suggestion of Tyrwhitt, prints, "-sare what shall have no end," to the manifest improvement of the sense; but as the old reading is intelligible, we are hardly warranted in making any change.

CXI.

a

O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
hat did not better for my life provide,
Chan 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;
Vhilst, 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 th' impression fill
Vhich 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 shaines and praises from your tongue;
Tone else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steel'd sense' or changes right or wrong.
n so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others' voices, that my adder's sense'
To critic d 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

CXIII.

go

́e dead.

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
And that which governs me to 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 fea

ture:

ado you with Fortune chide,-] The quarto corruptly reads, wish," for "with." To chide with is to quarrel with. So, in Cymbeline," Act V. Sc. 4,

"With Mars fall out, with Juno chide," &c.

Again, in "Othello," Act IV. Sc. 3,

"The business of the state does him offence,
And he does chide with you."

beisel,-] "Eisel" is vinegar, which, as Malone remarks, vas esteemed very eflicacious in preventing the communication of fectious distempers.

C

None else to me, nor I to none alive,

That my steel'd sense' or changes right or wrong.]

Steevens explains this,-" You are the only person who has power o change my stubborn resolution, either to what is right, or to what is wrong."

dcritic-] Cynic.

dead."

methinks are dead.] In the old copy,

Incapable of more, replete with you,

My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.h

CXIV.

Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with

you,

eye

Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?
Or whether shall I
saith true,
mine
say,
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; 't is 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, 't is 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 judgment 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?

"Methinks y'are

So in "Coriolanus," Act V. Sc. 3,

f Doth part his function,-] Performs part of his office. To latch is to seize, or catch. The gwhich it doth latch :] quarto in error reads, "doth lack."

h My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.] "I once suspected that Shakespeare wrote,

" and stick i' the wars Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw, And saving those that eye thee!"

777

MALONE.

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,b
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.

с

CXVIII.

Like as, to make our appetites 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.

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 pa

So I return rebuk'd to my content,
And gain by ill thrice more than I have sp

CXX.

That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow which I then did feel
Needs must I under my transgression box,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd sa
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 rememiz.
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow ha
And soon to you, as you to me then, tender:
The humble salve which wounded bosoms fra!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ranson

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 deen!
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 t

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. bevel; i

By their rank thoughts my deeds must n shown;

Unless this general evil they maintain,All men are bad, and in their badness reg

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.

their thick breaths,

Rank of gross diet."

e How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fox"Fitted" here means started, as by paroxysms. Hamlet," Act I. Sc. 5,—

"Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their sphæra,” and also," Pericles," Act II. Sc. 1,

"If it be a day fits you, scratch out of the calendar," kt. And gain by ill-] Old copy, "by ills." g- remember'd-] Reminded. So in "Richard UL" Ad Sc. 4,

"if I had been remember'd," &c.

h Give salutation to my sportive blood?] See note, p. Vol. II.

i-bevel;] Crooked.