63
Against my love shall be, as I am now, With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn;When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd hisbrow With lines and wrinkles; when his youthfulmorn Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;And all those beauties whereof now he's king Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight, Stealing away the treasure of his spring;For such a time do I now fortify Against confounding age's cruel knife, That he shall never cut from memory My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, And they shall live, and he in them still green.
64
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd, And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay;Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate— That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundlesssea,But sad mortality o'ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower?O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays? O fearful meditation! where, alack, Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid? Or what strong hand can hold his swift footback?Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? O! none, unless this miracle have might, That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
66
Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, And strength by limping sway disabled,And art made tongue-tied by authority,And folly—doctor-like—controlling skill,And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,And captive good attending captain ill: Tir'd with all these, from these would I bo gone,Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.
67
Ah! wherefore with infection should he live, And with his presence grace impiety, That sin by him advantage should achieve, And lace itself with his society? Why should false painting imitate his cheek, And steal dead seeing of his living hue? Why should poor beauty indirectly seek Roses of shadow, since his rose is true? Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is, Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins? For she hath no exchequer now but his, And, proud of many, lives upon his gains. O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had In days long since, before these last so bad.
68
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, When beauty liv'd and died as flowers do now, Before these bastard signs of fair were born, Or durst inhabit on a living brow;Before the golden tresses of the dead, The right of sepulchres, were shorn away, To live a second life on second head;Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:In him those holy antique hours are seen, Without all ornament, itself and true, Making no summer of another's green, Robbing no old to dress his beauty new; And him as for a map doth Nature store, To show false Art what beauty was of yore.
69
Those parts of thee that the world's eye dothview Want nothing that the thought of hearts canmend;All tongues—the voice of souls—give thee thatdue,Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend. Thy outward thus with outward praise iscrown'd;But those same tongues, that give thee so thineown, In other accents do this praise confound By seeing farther than the eye hath shown. They look into the beauty of thy mind, And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds;Then,—churls,—their thoughts, although theireyes were kind, To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:But why thy odour matcheth not thy show, The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.
70
That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect, For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;The ornament of beauty is suspect, A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. So thou be good, slander doth but approve Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time; For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, And thou present'st a pure unstained prime. Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days, Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd;Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise, To tie up envy evermore enlarg'd: If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show, Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.
71
No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:Nay, if you read this line, remember notThe hand that writ it; for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,If thinking on me then should make you woe.O! if,—I say, you look upon this verse,When I perhaps compounded am with clay,Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,But let your love even with my life decay; Lest the wise world should look into your moan,And mock you with me after I am gone.
72
O! lest the world should task you to recite What merit lived in me, that you should love After my death,—dear love, forget me quite, For you in me can nothing worthy prove;Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, To do more for me than mine own desert, And hang more praise upon deceased I Than niggard truth would willingly impart:O! lest your true love may seem false in this, That you for love speak well of me untrue, My name be buried where my body is, And live no more to shame nor me nor you. For I am sham'd by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birdssang.In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in restIn me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy lovemore strong,To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
74
But be contented: when that fell arrest Without all bail shall carry me away, My life hath in this line some interest, Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. When thou reviewest this, thou dost review The very part was consecrate to thee: The earth can have but earth, which is his due;My spirit is thine, the better part of me:So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, The prey of worms, my body being dead;The coward conquest of a wretch's knife, Too base of thee to be remembered. The worth of that is that which it contains, And that is this, and this with thee remains.
75
So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found;Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his trea- sure; Now counting best to be with you alone, Then better'd that the world may see my plea- sure:Sometime, all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look;Possessing or pursuing no delight, Save what is had or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,Or gluttoning on all, or all away.