X.

For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,Who for thyself art so unprovident.Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,But that thou none lovest is most evident;For thou art so possess'd with murderous hateThat 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire.Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinateWhich to repair should be thy chief desire.O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:Make thee another self, for love of me,That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

XVII.

Who will believe my verse in time to come,If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tombWhich hides your life and shows not half your parts.If I could write the beauty of your eyesAnd in fresh numbers number all your graces,The age to come would say 'This poet lies:Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'So should my papers yellow'd with their ageBe scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,And your true rights be term'd a poet's rageAnd stretched metre of an antique song:But were some child of yours alive that time,You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.

XXI.

So is it not with me as with that MuseStirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,Who heaven itself for ornament doth useAnd every fair with his fair doth rehearseMaking 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 rareThat heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.O' let me, true in love, but truly write,And then believe me, my love is as fairAs any mother's child, though not so brightAs those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:Let them say more than like of hearsay well;I will not praise that purpose not to sell. XXI.So is it not with me as with that MuseStirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,Who heaven itself for ornament doth useAnd every fair with his fair doth rehearseMaking 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 rareThat heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.O' let me, true in love, but truly write,And then believe me, my love is as fairAs any mother's child, though not so brightAs those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:Let them say more than like of hearsay well;I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

XXVI.

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalageThy merit hath my duty strongly knit,To thee I send this written embassage,To witness duty, not to show my wit:Duty so great, which wit so poor as mineMay make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,But that I hope some good conceit of thineIn thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;Till whatsoever star that guides my movingPoints on me graciously with fair aspectAnd puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

XXIX.

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,I all alone beweep my outcast stateAnd trouble deaf heaven with my bootless criesAnd look upon myself and curse my fate,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,Haply I think on thee, and then my state,Like to the lark at break of day arisingFrom sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth bringsThat then I scorn to change my state with kings.

XXVIII.

How can I then return in happy plight,That am debarr'd the benefit of rest?When day's oppression is not eased by night,But day by night, and night by day, oppress'd?And each, though enemies to either's reign,Do in consent shake hands to torture me;The one by toil, the other to complainHow far I toil, still farther off from thee.I tell the day, to please them thou art brightAnd dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.But day doth daily draw my sorrows longerAnd night doth nightly make grief's strengthseem stronger.

XXVII.

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;But then begins a journey in my head,To work my mind, when body's work's expired:For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,Looking on darkness which the blind do seeSave that my soul's imaginary sightPresents thy shadow to my sightless view,Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,For thee and for myself no quiet find.

XXXI.

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,Which I by lacking have supposed 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 tearHath dear religious love stol'n from mine eyeAs interest of the dead, which now appearBut things removed that hidden in thee lie!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,And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.

XXXV.

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.All men make faults, and even I in this,Authorizing thy trespass with compare,Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense--Thy adverse party is thy advocate--And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:Such civil war is in my love and hateThat I an accessary needs must beTo that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

XXXIV.

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,And make me travel forth without my cloak,To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,For no man well of such a salve can speakThat heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:The offender's sorrow lends but weak reliefTo him that bears the strong offence's cross.Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

XXXVII.

As a decrepit father takes delightTo see his active child do deeds of youth,So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,Or any of these all, or all, or more,Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,I make my love engrafted to this store:So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,Whilst that this shadow doth such substance giveThat I in thy abundance am sufficedAnd by a part of all thy glory live.Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee:This wish I have; then ten times happy me!

XLI.

Those petty wrongs that liberty commits,When I am sometime absent from thy heart,Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,For still temptation follows where thou art.Gentle thou art and therefore to be won,Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;And when a woman woos, what woman's sonWill sourly leave her till she have prevailed?Ay me! but yet thou mightest msy seat forbear,And chide try beauty and thy straying youth,Who lead thee in their riot even thereWhere thou art forced to break a twofold truth,Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.

XXXVIII.

How can my Muse want subject to invent,While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verseThine own sweet argument, too excellentFor every vulgar paper to rehearse?O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in meWorthy perusal stand against thy sight;For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,When thou thyself dost give invention light?Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worthThan those old nine which rhymers invocate;And he that calls on thee, let him bring forthEternal numbers to outlive long date.If my slight Muse do please these curious days,The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.