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lyimo

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shakespear

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30

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,

And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)

All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

31

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 tear

Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,

As interest of the dead, which now appear,

But 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.

32

If thou survive my well-contented day,

When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover

And shalt by fortune once more re-survey

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:

Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,

And though they be outstripped by every pen,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,

Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,

'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,

A dearer birth than this his love had brought

To march in ranks of better equipage:

But since he died and poets better prove,

Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.

33

Full many a glorious morning have I seen,

Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green;

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,

With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:

Even so my sun one early morn did shine,

With all triumphant splendour on my brow,

But out alack, he was but one hour mine,

The region cloud hath masked him from me now.

Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,

Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.

34

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 brav'ry 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 speak,

That 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,

Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief

To 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.

35

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,

My self 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 my self a lawful plea commence:

Such civil war is in my love and hate,

That I an accessary needs must be,

To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.