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Speak of the spring, and foison of the year, |
The one doth shadow of your beauty show, |
The other as your bounty doth appear, |
And you in every blessed shape we know. |
In all external grace you have some part, |
But you like none, none you for constant heart. |
54 |
O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, |
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! |
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem |
For that sweet odour, which doth in it live: |
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye, |
As the perfumed tincture of the roses, |
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly, |
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses: |
But for their virtue only is their show, |
They live unwooed, and unrespected fade, |
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so, |
Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made: |
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, |
When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth. |
55 |
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments |
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme, |
But you shall shine more bright in these contents |
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time. |
When wasteful war shall statues overturn, |
And broils root out the work of masonry, |
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn: |
The living record of your memory. |
'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity |
Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room, |
Even in the eyes of all posterity |
That wear this world out to the ending doom. |
So till the judgment that your self arise, |
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. |
56 |
Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said |
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, |
Which but to-day by feeding is allayed, |
To-morrow sharpened in his former might. |
So love be thou, although to-day thou fill |
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness, |
To-morrow see again, and do not kill |
The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness: |
Let this sad interim like the ocean be |
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new, |
Come daily to the banks, that when they see: |
Return of love, more blest may be the view. |
Or call it winter, which being full of care, |
Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare. |
57 |
Being your slave what should I do but tend, |
Upon the hours, and times of your desire? |
I have no precious time at all to spend; |
Nor services to do till you require. |
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour, |
Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you, |
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour, |
When you have bid your servant once adieu. |
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought, |
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, |
But like a sad slave stay and think of nought |
Save where you are, how happy you make those. |
So true a fool is love, that in your will, |
(Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill. |
58 |
That god forbid, that made me first your slave, |
I should in thought control your times of pleasure, |
Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave, |
Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure. |
O let me suffer (being at your beck) |
Th' imprisoned absence of your liberty, |
And patience tame to sufferance bide each check, |
Without accusing you of injury. |
Be where you list, your charter is so strong, |
That you your self may privilage your time |
To what you will, to you it doth belong, |
Your self to pardon of self-doing crime. |
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell, |
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well. |
59 |
If there be nothing new, but that which is, |
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled, |
Which labouring for invention bear amis |
The second burthen of a former child! |
O that record could with a backward look, |
Even of five hundred courses of the sun, |