The face of either cypher'd either's heart; Their face, their manners most expressly told, In Ajax' eyes blunt rage and rigour roll'd;

But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent, Shew'd deep regard and smiling government. There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand, As 'twere encouraging the Greeks to fight,

Making such sober actions with his hand,
That it beguiled attention, charm'd the sight:
In speech it seem'd his beard, all silver white,
Wagg'd up and down, and from his lips did fly
Thin winding breath, which purl'd up to the sky.
About him were a press of gaping faces,
Which seem'd to swallow up his sound advice;
All jointly list'ning, but with several graces,
As if some mermaid did their ears entice;
Some high, some low, the painter was so nice.
The scalps of many almost hid behind,
To jump up higher seem'd to mock the mind.
Here one man's hand lean'd on another's head,
His nose being shadow'd by his neighbour's ear;
Here one being throng'd, bears black all blown
and red;

Another smother'd, seems to pelt and swear,
And in their rage, (such signs of rage they bear)
As but for loss of Nestor's golden words,
It seems they would debate with angry swords.
For much imaginary work was there;
Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,

That for Achilles' image stood his spear,
Griped in an armed hand; himself behind
Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind:
A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head,
Stood for the whole to be imagined.

And from the walls of strong besieged Troy, When their brave hope, bold Hector, march'd to field,

Stood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield; And to their hope they such odd action yield,

That through their light joy seem'd to appear, (Like bright things stain'd) a kind of heavy fear. And from the strand of Dardan where they fought, To Simois' reedy banks the red blood ran;

Whose waves to imitate the battle sought With swelling ridges; and their ranks began To break upon the galled shore, and then

Retire again, till meeting greater ranks They join, and shoot their foam at Simois' banks. To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come To find a face where all distress is stell'd;

Many she sees, where cares have carved some, But none where all distress and dolour dwell'd, Till she despairing Hecuba beheld,

Staring on Priam's wounds with her old eyes, Which bleeding ander Pyrrhus' proud foot lies. In her the painter had anatomized

Time's ruin, beauty's wreck, and grim care's reign; Her cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were dis

guised;

Of what she was, no semblance did remain ;
Her blue blood changed to black in every vein:
Wanting the spring, that those shrunk pipes had
fed,

Shew'd life imprison'd in a body dead.

On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes,
And shapes her sorrow to the beldame's woes;
Who nothing wants to answer her but cries,
And bitter words to ban her cruel foes.
The painter was no god to lend her those;

And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong,
To give her so much grief, and not a tongue.
'Poor instrument,' quoth she, without a sound!
I'll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue;

And drop sweet balm in Priam's painted wound, And rail on Pyrrhus, that hath done him wrong, And with my tears quench Troy, that burns so long; And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes Of all the Greeks, that are thine enemies..

· Shew me the strumpet, that began this stir, That with my nails her beauty I may tear: Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur

This load of wrath, that burning Troy did bear; Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here:

And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye, The sire, the son, the dame, and daughter die.

'Why should the private pleasure of some ont, Become the public plague of many more? Let sin alone committed, light alone Upon his head, that hath transgressed so. Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe. For one's offence why should so many fall, To plague a private sin in general?

Lo! here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies! Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus sounds! Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies! And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds! And one man's lust these many lives confponds! Had doating Priam check'd his son's desire, Troy had been bright with fame, and not with fire.' Here feelingly she weeps Troy's painted woes: For sorrow, like a heavy hanging bell,

Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes; Then little strength rings out the doleful kneil. So Lucrece set a-work, sad tales doth tell

To pencill'd pensiveness, and colour'd sorrow; She lends them words, and she their looks doil borrow.

She throws her eyes about the painting round, And whom she finds forlorn she doth lament: At last she sees a wretched image bound, That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent; His face, though full of cares, yet shew'd content. Onward to Troy with these blunt swains he goes, So mild, that patience seem'd to scorn his woes In him the painter labour'd with his skill, To hide deceit, and give the harmless show, An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still, A brow unbent, that seem'd to welcome woe; Cheeks, neither red, nor pale, but mingled so, That blushing red no guilty instance gave, Nor ashy pale, the fair that false hearts have. But, like a constant and confirmed devil, He entertain❜d a show so seeming just;

And therein so insconced his secret evil, That jealousy itself could not mistrust, False creeping craft and perjury should thrust, Into so bright a day such black-faced storms, Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms. The well-skill'd workman this wild image drew For perjured Sinon, whose enchanting story The credulous old Priam after slew; Whose words like wild-fire burnt the shining glory Of rich-built Ilion; that the skies were sorry, And little stars shot from their fixed places, When their glass fell wherein they view'd their faces.

This picture she advisedly perused, And chid the painter for his wondrous skill: Saying, some shape in Sinon's was abused, So fair a form lodged not a mind so ill: And still on him she gazed, and gazing still, Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied, That she concludes, the picture was belied. 'It cannot be,' quoth she, that so much guile,' She would have said, can lurk in such a look;

But Tarquin's shape came in her mind the while, And from her tongue, can lurk, from cannot, took : It cannot be, she in that sense forsook,

And turn'd it thus; it cannot be, I find,
But such a face should bear a wicked mind.
'For e'en as subtle Sinon here is painted,
So sober sad, so weary, and so mild,

(As if with grief or travel he had fainted)
To me came Tarquin armed, so beguiled
With outward honesty, but yet defiled
With inward vice: as Priam him did cherish,
So did I Tarquin, so my Troy did perish.
'Look, look how list'ning Priam wets his eyes,
To see those borrow'd tears that Sinon sheds!
Priam, why art thou old, and yet not wise!
For every tear he falls, a Trojan bleeds:
His eyes drop fire, no water thence proceeds.
Those round clear pearls of his, that move thy pity
Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city.
'Such devils steal effects from lightless hell,
For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold,
And in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell;
These contraries such unity do hold,
Only to flatter fools, and make them bold:
So Priam's trust false Sinon's tears doth flatter,
That he finds means to buin his Troy with watet.

Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow, And time doth weary time with her complaining:

She looks for night, and then she longs for morrow, And both she thinks too long with her remaining: Short time seems long, in sorrow's sharp sustaining. Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps, And they that watch, see time how slow it creeps. Which all this time hath over-slipt her thought, That she with painted images hath spent,

Being from the feeling of her own grief brought,
By deep surmise of others detriment,
Losing her woes in shews of discontent.

It easeth some, though none it ever cured,
To think their dolour others have endured.

But now the mindful messenger comes back,
Brings home his lord, and other company;

Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black, And round about her tear-distained eye Blue circles stream'd, like rainbows in the sky. These watergalls, in her dim element, Foretel new storms to those already spent. Which when her sad-beholding husband saw, Amazedly in her sad face he stares:

Her eyes, though sod in tears, look red and raw, Her lively colour kill'd with deadly cares. He hath no power to ask her how she fares,

But stood like old acquaintance in a trance, Met far from hence, wond'ring each other's chance.

At last he takes her by the bloodless hand, And thus begins: What uncouth ill event

Hath thee befallen, that thou dost trembling stand? Sweet love! what spite hath thy fair colour spent? Why art thou thus attired in discontent?

Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness, And tell thy grief, that we may give redress.' Three times with sighs she gives her sorrows fire, Ere once she can discharge one word of woe: At length address'd, to answer his desire, She modestly prepares, to let them know Her honour is ta'en prisoner by the foe: While Colatine, and his consorted lords, With sad attention long to hear her words. And now this pale swan in her wat'ry nest, Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending.

Few words,' quoth she,' shall fit the trespass best, Where no excuse can give the fault amending; In me more woes than words are now depending: And my laments would be drawn out too long, To tell them all with one poor tired tongue. Then be this all the task it hath to say, Dear husband, in the interest of thy bed

A stranger came, and on that pillow lay,
Where thou wast wont to rest thy weary head;
And what wrong else may be imagined

By foul enforcement might be done to me,
From that, alas! thy Lucrece is not free.

For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight,
With shining falchion, in my chamber came
A creeping creature with a flaming light,
And softly cried, Awake, thou Roman dame !
And entertain my love; else lasting shame
On thee and thine this night I will inflict,
If thou my love's desire do contradict.

For some hard-favour'd groom of thine,' quoth he,
Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will,
I'll murder straight, and then I'll slaughter thee,
And swear I found you, where you did fulfil
The loathsome act of lust; and so did kill

The lechers in their deed: this act will be
My fame, and thy perpetual infamy.

With this I did begin to start and cry,
And then against my heart he sets his sword,
Swearing, unless I took all patiently,

I should not live to speak another word:
So should my shame still rest upon record,
And never be forgot in mighty Rome,

Th' adulterate death of Lucrece and her groom.

Oh! teach me how to make mine own excuse, Or, at the least, this refuge let me find; Though my gross blood be stain'd with this abuse. Immaculate and spotless is my mind: That was not forced, that never was inclined To accessary yieldings; but still pure Doth in her poison'd closet yet endure.'

Lo! here the hopeless merchant of this loss, With head declined, and voice damm'd up with

woe;

With sad set eyes, and wretched arms across,
From lips now waxen pale begins to blow
The grief away, that stops his answer so.

But wretched as he is, he strives in vain;
What he breathes out, his breath drinks up again,
As through an arch, the violent roaring tide
Out-runs the eye that doth behold his haste;
Yet in the eddy boundeth in his pride
Back to the strait, that forced him on so fast;
In rage sent out, recall'd in rage being past:
Even so his sighs, his sorrows make a saw,
To push grief on, and back the same grief draw.
Which speechless woe of his, poor she attendeth,
And his untimely frenzy thus awaketh:

'Dear lord! thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth Another power, no flood by raining slacketh; My woe too sensible thy passion maketh

More feeling painful; let it then suffice
To drown one woe, one pair of weeping eyes.

And for my sake, when I might charm thee 30,
For she, that was thy Lucrece-now attend me,
Be suddenly revenged on my foe;

Thine, mine, his own; suppose thou dost defend

me

From what is past, the help, that thou shalt leud me
Comes all too late: yet let the traitor die;
For sparing justice feeds iniquity.'

'But ere I name him, your fair lords,' quoth she,

(Speaking to those that came with Colatine)

Shall plight your honourable faiths to me, With swift pursuit to 'venge this wrong of mine: For 'tis a meritorious fair design,

To chase injustice with revengeful arms, Knights by their oaths should right poor ladies harms.'

At this request, with noble disposition, Each present lord began to promise aid,

As bound in knighthood to her imposition, Longing to hear the hateful foe bewray'd: But she that yet her sad task hath not said,

The protestation stops. 'O speak!' quoth she, 'How may this forced stain be wiped from me? 'What is the quality of my offence, Being constrain'd with dreadful circumstance? May my pure mind with the foul act dispense, My low declined honour to advance ? May any terms acquit me from this chance ? · The poison'd fountain clears itself again, And why not I, from this compelled stain ? With this they all at once began to say, Her body's stain the mind untainted clears, While with a joyless smile she turns away The face, that map, which deep impression bears

of hard misfortune carved in with tears.

No, no,' quoth she, no dame hereafter living, By my excuse shall claim excuses giving.' Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break, She throws forth Tarquin's name. He, he,' she

says:

But more, than he, her poor tongue could not speak,

Till after many accents and delays,
Untimely breathings, sick and short assays,
She utters this, He, he, fair lord, 'tis he
That guides this hand to give this wound to me.'

E'en here she sheathed in her harmless breast

A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed;

That blow did bail it from the deep unrest Of that polluted prison where it breathed; Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeathed Her winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly

Life's lasting date from cancell'd destiny.

Stone still, astonish'd with this deadly deed, Stood Colatine and all his lordly crew,

Till Lucrece' father, that beholds her bleed, Himself on her self-slaughter'd body threw : And from the purple fountain Brutus drew

The murd'rous knife, and as it left the place, Her blood, in pure revenge, held it in chase..

And bubbling from her breast it doth divide
In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood
Circles her body in on every side;

Who like the late sack'd island vastly stood
Bare and unpeopled in this fearful flood.

Some of her blood still pure and red remain'd,
And some look'd black, and that false Tarquin

stain'd.

About the mourning and congealed face
Of that black blood, a wat'ry rigol goes,
Which seems to weep upon the tainted place;
And ever since, as pitying Lucrece' woes,
Corrupted blood some wat'ry token shews:
And blood untainted still doth red abide,
Blushing at that which is so putrified.

Daughter! dear daughter:' old Lucretius cries,
That life was mine, which thou hast here deprived;
If in the child the father's image lies,
Where shall I live, now Lucrece is unlived?
Thou wast not to this end from me derived.
If children predecease progenitors,
We are their offspring, and they none of ours.
'Poor broken glass, I often did behold
In thy sweet semblance, my old age new born;
But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and cold,
Shews me a bare-boned death by time out-worn:
O from my cheeks my image thou hast torn!
And shiver'd all the beauty from my glass,
That I no more can see what once I was.
'O! Time, cease thou thy course, and haste no
longer,

If thee surcease to be, that should survive:

Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger, And leave the falt'ring feeble souls alive? The old bees die, the young possess their hive; Then live sweet Lucrece, live again and see Thy father die, and not thy father thee.' By this starts Colatine as from a dream, And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place;

And then in clay-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream
He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face,
And counterfeits to die with her a space;

Till manly shame bids him possess his breath,
And live to be revenged on her death.

The deep vexation of his inward soul
Hath served a dumb arrest upon his tongue;

Who mad that sorrow should his use controul, Or keep him from heart-easing words so long, He 'gins to talk; but through his lips do throng

Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece, Seeing such emulation in their woe,

Began to clothe his wit in state and pride, Burying in Lucrece' wound his folly's show: He with the Romans was esteemed so,

As silly jeering ideots are with kings, For sportive words, and uttering foolish things. But now he throws that shallow habit by, Wherein true policy did him disguise,

And arm'd his long-hid wits advisedly, To check the tears in Colatinus' eyes. Thou wronged lord of Rome,' quoth he,' arise; Let my unsounded self, supposed a fool, Now set thy long-experienced wit to school. "Why, Colatine, is woe the cure for woe! Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds?

Is it revenge to give thyself a blow For his foul act, by whom thy fair wife bleeds! Such childish humour from weak minds proceeds: Thy wretched wife mistook the matter so, To slay herself, that should have slain her fee. 'Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart In such lamenting dew of lamentations; But kneel with me, and help to bear thy part, To rouse our Roman gods with invocations, That they will suffer these alominations

(Since Rome herself doth stand in them dis graced)

By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chased.

'Now by the capitol that we adore!

And by this chaste blood so unjustly stain'd!
By heaven's fair sun, that breeds the fat earthy

store;

By all our country's rites in Rome maintain'd!
And by chaste Lucrece' soul, that late complain'd
Her wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife!
We will revenge the death of this true wite.
This said, he struck his hand upon his breast,
And kiss'd the fatal knife to end his vow:
And to his protestation urged the rest,
Who wond'ring at him did his words allow:
Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow,
And that deep vow which Brutus made before,
He doth again repeat, and that they swore.
When they had sworn to this advised doom,
They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence,
To shew the bleeding hody throughout Rome,
And so to publish Tarquin's foul offence.
Which being done, with speedy diligence,
The Romans plausibly did give consent,
To Tarquin's everlasting banishment.

➡40004

SONNETS.

TO THE ONLY BEGETTER OF THESE ENSUING SONNETS

MR. W. H. ALL HAPPINESS

aid,

That no man could distinguish what he said. Yet sometime Tarquin was pronounced plain, But through his teeth, as if his name he tore : This windy tempest, till it blow up rain, Held back his sorrow's tide to make it more. At last it rains, and busy winds give o'er:

Then son and father weep with equal strife, Who should weep most for daughter, or for wife. The one doth call her his, the other his; Yet neither may possess the claim they lay. The father says, 'she's mine - O mine she is,' Replies her husband; 'do not take away My sorrow's interest, let no mourner say, He weeps for her, for she was only mine, And only must be wail'd by Colatine.'

O quoth Lucretius, I did give that life, Which she too early and too late hath spill'd.'

Woe! woe! quoth Colatine, she was my wife, I own'd her, and 'tis mine that she hath kill'd. My daughter and my wife with clamours fill'd The dispersed air, who holding Lucrece' life, Answer'd their cries, my daughter, and my wife.'

FROM fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. Thou, that art now the world's fresh ornament, And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content, And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding, Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

• i. e. Thomas Thorpe, in whose name the Sonnets were first entered in Stationers' Hall.

II.

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, nd dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now, Vill be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held: Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, Vere an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise. How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use, f thou couldst answer- This fair child of mine Shall sum my count, and make my old excuseroving his beauty by succession thine. This were to be new made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

III.

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest, Tow is the time that face should form another; Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, hon dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair, whose un-ear'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.

IV.

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend Jpon 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 be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee,
Which used lives thy executor to be.

V.

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame,
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.

VI.

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, e'er thou be distill'd:
Make sweet some phial, treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure, e'er 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.

VIL

Lo in the orient when the gracious light 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 high-most pitch, with weary car, Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, The eyes, 'fore duteons, 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. VIII.

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy. Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly?

Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy ?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;

Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee, thou single wilt prove none.'

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 hate,
That 'gainst thyseif thou stick'st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate,
Which 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.

Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,

And die as fast as they see others grow;

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence,

Save breed, to brave him, when he takes thee hence.

XIII.

O that you were yourself! but, love, you are No longer your's than you yourself here live: Against this coming end you should prepare, And your sweet semblance to some other give. So should that Leauty which you hold in lease, Find no determination: then you were

Yourself again, after yourself's decease, When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay, Which husbandry in honour might uphold Against the stormy gusts of winter's day, And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

O! none but unthrifts :-Dear my love, you know You had a father; let your son say so.

XIV.

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck; And yet methinks I have astronomy,

But not to tell of good, or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality:
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind;
Or say, with princes if it shall go well,
By oft predict that I in heaven find:

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
Aud (constant stars) in them I read such art,
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert:
Or else of thee this I prognosticate,

Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

XV.

When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge state presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment: When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheer'd and check'd even by the self-same sky; Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out of memory; Then the conceit of his inconstant stay Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful time debarreth with decay, To change your day of youth to sullied night; And, all in war with time, for love of you, As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

XVI.

But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
And fortify yourself in your decay

With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours;
And many maiden gardens yet unset,
With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit;

So should the lines of life that life repair,
Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,
Neither in inward worth, nor outward fair,
Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.
To give away yourself, keeps yourself still;
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet
skill

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 tomb Which hides your life, and shews not half your

parts.

If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And 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, yellowed with their age, Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue; And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage, And 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.

XVIII.

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: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd; 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, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. XIX.

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 fleet'st, And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time, To the wide world, and all her fading swec3; But I forbid thee one most heinous crime: 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.

My glass shall not persuade me I am old, So long as youth and thou art 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, Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me; How can I then be elder than thou art? O therefore, love, be of thyself so wary, As I not for myself but for thee will; Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary, As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain; Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again, XXIII.

As an unperfect actor on the stage, Who with his fear is put beside his part,

Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;