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I see their antique pen would have expressed, |
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 looked 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. |
107 |
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, |
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. |
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured, |
And the sad augurs mock their own presage, |
Incertainties now crown themselves assured, |
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. |
And thou in this shalt find thy monument, |
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. |
108 |
What's in the brain that ink may character, |
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit, |
What's new to speak, what now 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 hallowed 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. |
109 |
O never say that I was false of heart, |
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify, |
As easy might I from my self depart, |
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie: |
That is my home of love, if I have ranged, |
Like him that travels I return again, |
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, |
So that my self bring water for my stain, |
Never believe though in my nature reigned, |
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, |
That it could so preposterously be stained, |
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. |
110 |
Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there, |
And made my self a motley to the view, |
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, |
Made old offences of affections new. |
Most true it is, that I have looked on truth |
Askance and strangely: but by all above, |
These blenches gave my heart another youth, |
And worse essays proved 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 confined. |
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, |
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast. |
111 |
O for my sake do you with Fortune chide, |
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, |
That did not better for my life provide, |
Than public means which public manners breeds. |
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, |
And almost thence my nature is subdued |
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand: |
Pity me then, and wish I were renewed, |
Whilst 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. |
112 |
Your love and pity doth th' impression fill, |
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow, |
For what care I who calls me well or ill, |
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow? |