sonnets.yml

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- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 1
  lines:
  - 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,
  - 'Thy self 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 mak''st waste in niggarding:'
  - Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
  - To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 2
  lines:
  - When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
  - And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
  - Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,
  - 'Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:'
  - Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
  - Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
  - To say within thine own deep sunken eyes,
  - Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
  - How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
  - If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
  - Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse'
  - Proving 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 3
  lines:
  - Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
  - Now is the time that face should form another,
  - Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
  - Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
  - For where is she so fair whose uneared 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 remembered not to be,
  - Die single and thine image dies with thee.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 4
  lines:
  - Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,
  - Upon thy self 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 thy self alone,
  - Thou of thy self 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 tombed with thee,
  - Which used lives th' executor to be.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 5
  lines:
  - 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 checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
  - 'Beauty o''er-snowed 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 distilled though they with winter meet,
  - Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 6
  lines:
  - Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,
  - 'In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:'
  - Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,
  - 'With beauty''s treasure ere it be self-killed:'
  - That use is not forbidden usury,
  - Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
  - That's for thy self to breed another thee,
  - Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
  - Ten times thy self 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-willed for thou art much too fair,
  - To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 7
  lines:
  - 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 climbed 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 highmost pitch with weary car,
  - Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,
  - The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are
  - 'From his low tract and look another way:'
  - 'So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:'
  - Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 8
  lines:
  - Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
  - 'Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:'
  - Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
  - Or else receiv'st 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'.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 9
  lines:
  - Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
  - That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
  - Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
  - The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,
  - The world will be thy widow and still weep,
  - That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
  - When every private widow well may keep,
  - 'By children''s eyes, her husband''s shape in mind:'
  - Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
  - Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
  - But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
  - 'And kept unused the user so destroys it:'
  - No love toward others in that bosom sits
  - That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 10
  lines:
  - For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any
  - Who for thy self art so unprovident.
  - Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
  - 'But that thou none lov''st is most evident:'
  - For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate,
  - That 'gainst thy self 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 thy self at least kind-hearted prove,
  - Make thee another self for love of me,
  - That beauty still may live in thine or thee.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 11
  lines:
  - As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st,
  - In one of thine, from that which thou departest,
  - And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,
  - Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,
  - Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,
  - Without this folly, age, and cold decay,
  - If all were minded so, the times should cease,
  - 'And threescore year would make the world away:'
  - Let those whom nature hath not made for store,
  - 'Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:'
  - Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;
  - 'Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:'
  - She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,
  - Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 12
  lines:
  - When I do count the clock that tells the time,
  - And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
  - When I behold the violet past prime,
  - 'And sable curls all silvered o''er with white:'
  - When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
  - Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
  - And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
  - 'Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:'
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 13
  lines:
  - O that you were your self, but love you are
  - No longer yours, than you your self here live,
  - Against this coming end you should prepare,
  - And your sweet semblance to some other give.
  - So should that beauty which you hold in lease
  - Find no determination, then you were
  - Your self again after your self'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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 14
  lines:
  - Not from the stars do I my judgement 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,
  - And constant stars in them I read such art
  - As truth and beauty shall together thrive
  - 'If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:'
  - Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
  - Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 15
  lines:
  - When I consider every thing that grows
  - Holds in perfection but a little moment.
  - That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
  - Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.
  - When I perceive that men as plants increase,
  - 'Cheered and checked 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 this inconstant stay,
  - Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
  - Where wasteful time debateth 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 16
  lines:
  - But wherefore do not you a mightier way
  - Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?
  - And fortify your self 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 your self in eyes of men.
  - To give away your self, keeps your self still,
  - And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 17
  lines:
  - Who will believe my verse in time to come
  - If it were filled with your most high deserts?
  - Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
  - 'Which hides your life, and shows 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 touched earthly faces.
  - So should my papers (yellowed with their age)
  - Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
  - And your true rights be termed 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 18
  lines:
  - 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:'
  - Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
  - And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
  - And every fair from fair sometime declines,
  - 'By chance, or nature''s changing course untrimmed:'
  - But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
  - Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
  - Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
  - When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
  - So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
  - So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 19
  lines:
  - 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 sweets:'
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 20
  lines:
  - A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
  - Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,
  - A woman's gentle heart but not acquainted
  - With shifting change as is false women's fashion,
  - 'An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:'
  - Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,
  - A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
  - Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
  - And for a woman wert thou first created,
  - Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
  - And by addition me of thee defeated,
  - By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
  - But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,
  - Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 21
  lines:
  - So is it not with me as with that muse,
  - Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
  - Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,
  - And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
  - Making a couplement of proud compare
  - 'With sun and moon, with earth and sea''s rich gems:'
  - With April's first-born flowers and all things rare,
  - That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
  - O let me true in love but truly write,
  - And then believe me, my love is as fair,
  - As any mother's child, though not so bright
  - 'As those gold candles fixed in heaven''s air:'
  - Let them say more that like of hearsay well,
  - I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 22
  lines:
  - My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
  - So long as youth and thou are 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 my self, 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 gav'st me thine not to give back again.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 23
  lines:
  - 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;
  - So I for fear of trust, forget to say,
  - The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
  - And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
  - 'O''ercharged with burthen of mine own love''s might:'
  - O let my looks be then the eloquence,
  - And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
  - Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
  - More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.
  - O learn to read what silent love hath writ,
  - To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 24
  lines:
  - Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,
  - Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,
  - My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
  - And perspective it is best painter's art.
  - For through the painter must you see his skill,
  - To find where your true image pictured lies,
  - Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
  - 'That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:'
  - Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,
  - Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
  - Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
  - Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
  - Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
  - They draw but what they see, know not the heart.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 25
  lines:
  - Let those who are in favour with their stars,
  - Of public honour and proud titles boast,
  - Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars
  - Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;
  - Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread,
  - But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
  - And in themselves their pride lies buried,
  - For at a frown they in their glory die.
  - The painful warrior famoused for fight,
  - After a thousand victories once foiled,
  - Is from the book of honour razed quite,
  - 'And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:'
  - Then happy I that love and am beloved
  - Where I may not remove nor be removed.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 26
  lines:
  - Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
  - Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;
  - To thee I send this written embassage
  - To witness duty, not to show my wit.
  - Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
  - May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;
  - But that I hope some good conceit of thine
  - 'In thy soul''s thought (all naked) will bestow it:'
  - Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
  - Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
  - And puts apparel on my tattered loving,
  - To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,
  - Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,
  - Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 27
  lines:
  - Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
  - The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,
  - But then begins a journey in my head
  - To work my mind, when body's work's expired.
  - For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)
  - Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
  - And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
  - Looking on darkness which the blind do see.
  - Save that my soul's imaginary sight
  - Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
  - Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)
  - Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
  - Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,
  - For thee, and for my self, no quiet find.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 28
  lines:
  - How can I then return in happy plight
  - That am debarred the benefit of rest?
  - When day's oppression is not eased by night,
  - But day by night and night by day oppressed.
  - And each (though enemies to either's reign)
  - Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
  - The one by toil, the other to complain
  - How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
  - I tell the day to please him thou art bright,
  - 'And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:'
  - So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,
  - When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.
  - But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
  - And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 29
  lines:
  - When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
  - I all alone beweep my outcast state,
  - And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
  - And look upon my self and curse my fate,
  - Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
  - Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
  - Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
  - With what I most enjoy contented least,
  - Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
  - Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
  - "(Like to the lark at break of day arising"
  - From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
  - For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
  - That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 30
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 31
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 32
  lines:
  - 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'.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 33
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 34
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 35
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 36
  lines:
  - Let me confess that we two must be twain,
  - 'Although our undivided loves are one:'
  - So shall those blots that do with me remain,
  - Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
  - In our two loves there is but one respect,
  - Though in our lives a separable spite,
  - Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
  - Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
  - I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
  - Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
  - Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
  - 'Unless thou take that honour from thy name:'
  - But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
  - As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 37
  lines:
  - As a decrepit father takes delight,
  - To see his active child do deeds of youth,
  - So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite
  - Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
  - For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
  - Or any of these all, or all, or more
  - Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
  - 'I make my love engrafted to this store:'
  - So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
  - Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,
  - That I in thy abundance am sufficed,
  - 'And by a part of all thy glory live:'
  - Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,
  - This wish I have, then ten times happy me.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 38
  lines:
  - How can my muse want subject to invent
  - While thou dost breathe that pour'st into my verse,
  - Thine own sweet argument, too excellent,
  - For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
  - O give thy self the thanks if aught in me,
  - Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,
  - For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
  - When thou thy self dost give invention light?
  - Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
  - Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,
  - And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
  - Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
  - If my slight muse do please these curious days,
  - The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 39
  lines:
  - O how thy worth with manners may I sing,
  - When thou art all the better part of me?
  - 'What can mine own praise to mine own self bring:'
  - And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?
  - Even for this, let us divided live,
  - And our dear love lose name of single one,
  - 'That by this separation I may give:'
  - 'That due to thee which thou deserv''st alone:'
  - O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,
  - Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,
  - To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
  - Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.
  - And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
  - By praising him here who doth hence remain.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 40
  lines:
  - Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,
  - What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
  - No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,
  - 'All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:'
  - Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,
  - I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,
  - But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest
  - By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.
  - I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief
  - 'Although thou steal thee all my poverty:'
  - And yet love knows it is a greater grief
  - To bear greater wrong, than hate's known injury.
  - Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
  - Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 41
  lines:
  - Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
  - When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
  - Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,
  - For still temptation follows where thou art.
  - Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
  - Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.
  - And when a woman woos, what woman's son,
  - Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?
  - Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
  - And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,
  - Who lead thee in their riot even there
  - 'Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:'
  - Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
  - Thine by thy beauty being false to me.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 42
  lines:
  - That thou hast her it is not all my grief,
  - And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,
  - That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
  - A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
  - Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,
  - Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her,
  - And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
  - Suff'ring my friend for my sake to approve her.
  - If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,
  - And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,
  - Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
  - And both for my sake lay on me this cross,
  - But here's the joy, my friend and I are one,
  - Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 43
  lines:
  - When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,
  - For all the day they view things unrespected,
  - But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
  - And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
  - Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright
  - How would thy shadow's form, form happy show,
  - To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
  - When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
  - How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,
  - By looking on thee in the living day,
  - When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,
  - Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
  - All days are nights to see till I see thee,
  - And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 44
  lines:
  - If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
  - Injurious distance should not stop my way,
  - For then despite of space I would be brought,
  - From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,
  - No matter then although my foot did stand
  - Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,
  - For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
  - As soon as think the place where he would be.
  - But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought
  - To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
  - But that so much of earth and water wrought,
  - I must attend, time's leisure with my moan.
  - Receiving nought by elements so slow,
  - But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 45
  lines:
  - The other two, slight air, and purging fire,
  - Are both with thee, wherever I abide,
  - The first my thought, the other my desire,
  - These present-absent with swift motion slide.
  - For when these quicker elements are gone
  - In tender embassy of love to thee,
  - My life being made of four, with two alone,
  - Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.
  - Until life's composition be recured,
  - By those swift messengers returned from thee,
  - Who even but now come back again assured,
  - Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.
  - This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,
  - I send them back again and straight grow sad.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 46
  lines:
  - Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
  - How to divide the conquest of thy sight,
  - Mine eye, my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
  - My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,
  - My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
  - "(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)"
  - But the defendant doth that plea deny,
  - And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
  - To side this title is impanelled
  - A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,
  - And by their verdict is determined
  - The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part.
  - As thus, mine eye's due is thy outward part,
  - And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 47
  lines:
  - Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
  - And each doth good turns now unto the other,
  - When that mine eye is famished for a look,
  - Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;
  - With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,
  - 'And to the painted banquet bids my heart:'
  - Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
  - And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.
  - So either by thy picture or my love,
  - Thy self away, art present still with me,
  - For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
  - And I am still with them, and they with thee.
  - Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
  - Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 48
  lines:
  - How careful was I when I took my way,
  - Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
  - That to my use it might unused stay
  - From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
  - But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
  - Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
  - Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,
  - Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
  - Thee have I not locked up in any chest,
  - Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,
  - Within the gentle closure of my breast,
  - From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,
  - And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,
  - For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 49
  lines:
  - Against that time (if ever that time come)
  - When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
  - When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
  - Called to that audit by advised respects,
  - Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
  - And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,
  - When love converted from the thing it was
  - Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
  - Against that time do I ensconce me here
  - Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
  - And this my hand, against my self uprear,
  - To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,
  - To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,
  - Since why to love, I can allege no cause.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 50
  lines:
  - How heavy do I journey on the way,
  - When what I seek (my weary travel's end)
  - Doth teach that case and that repose to say
  - "'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.'"
  - The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
  - Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
  - As if by some instinct the wretch did know
  - 'His rider loved not speed being made from thee:'
  - The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
  - That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
  - Which heavily he answers with a groan,
  - More sharp to me than spurring to his side,
  - For that same groan doth put this in my mind,
  - My grief lies onward and my joy behind.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 51
  lines:
  - Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,
  - Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,
  - From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?
  - Till I return of posting is no need.
  - O what excuse will my poor beast then find,
  - When swift extremity can seem but slow?
  - Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,
  - In winged speed no motion shall I know,
  - Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,
  - Therefore desire (of perfect'st love being made)
  - Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,
  - But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,
  - Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,
  - Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 52
  lines:
  - So am I as the rich whose blessed key,
  - Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
  - The which he will not every hour survey,
  - For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
  - Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
  - Since seldom coming in that long year set,
  - Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
  - Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
  - So is the time that keeps you as my chest
  - Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
  - To make some special instant special-blest,
  - By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.
  - Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
  - Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 53
  lines:
  - What is your substance, whereof are you made,
  - That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
  - Since every one, hath every one, one shade,
  - 'And you but one, can every shadow lend:'
  - Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,
  - Is poorly imitated after you,
  - On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
  - 'And you in Grecian tires are painted new:'
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 54
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 55
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 56
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 57
  lines:
  - 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."
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 58
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 59
  lines:
  - 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,
  - Show me your image in some antique book,
  - Since mind at first in character was done.
  - That I might see what the old world could say,
  - To this composed wonder of your frame,
  - Whether we are mended, or whether better they,
  - Or whether revolution be the same.
  - O sure I am the wits of former days,
  - To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 60
  lines:
  - Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
  - So do our minutes hasten to their end,
  - Each changing place with that which goes before,
  - In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
  - Nativity once in the main of light,
  - Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,
  - Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
  - And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
  - Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
  - And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
  - Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
  - And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
  - And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
  - Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 61
  lines:
  - Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
  - My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
  - Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
  - While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
  - Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
  - So far from home into my deeds to pry,
  - To find out shames and idle hours in me,
  - The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?
  - O no, thy love though much, is not so great,
  - It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
  - Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
  - To play the watchman ever for thy sake.
  - For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
  - From me far off, with others all too near.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 62
  lines:
  - Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,
  - And all my soul, and all my every part;
  - And for this sin there is no remedy,
  - It is so grounded inward in my heart.
  - Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
  - No shape so true, no truth of such account,
  - And for my self mine own worth do define,
  - As I all other in all worths surmount.
  - But when my glass shows me my self indeed
  - beated and chopt with tanned antiquity,
  - 'Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:'
  - Self, so self-loving were iniquity.
  - "'Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,"
  - Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 63
  lines:
  - Against my love shall be as I am now
  - With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn,
  - When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
  - With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn
  - Hath travelled on to age's steepy night,
  - And all those beauties whereof now he's king
  - Are vanishing, or vanished 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 64
  lines:
  - When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
  - The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,
  - When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,
  - 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 it self 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 65
  lines:
  - Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
  - 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 batt'ring 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 foot back,
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 66
  lines:
  - Tired with all these for restful death I cry,
  - As to behold desert a beggar born,
  - And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
  - And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
  - And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
  - And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
  - And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
  - And strength by limping sway disabled
  - And art made tongue-tied by authority,
  - And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
  - And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
  - And captive good attending captain ill.
  - Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
  - Save that to die, I leave my love alone.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 67
  lines:
  - Ah wherefore with infection should he live,
  - And with his presence grace impiety,
  - That sin by him advantage should achieve,
  - And lace it self with his society?
  - Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
  - And steal dead seeming 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,
  - Beggared 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 68
  lines:
  - Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
  - When beauty lived 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, it self 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 69
  lines:
  - Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view,
  - 'Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:'
  - All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,
  - Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
  - Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,
  - But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,
  - 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 their eyes 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 70
  lines:
  - That thou art blamed 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 wooed of time,
  - For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
  - And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
  - Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,
  - Either not assailed, or victor being charged,
  - Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
  - To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,
  - If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,
  - Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 71
  lines:
  - 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 not,
  - The 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 72
  lines:
  - 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 shamed by that which I bring forth,
  - And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 73
  lines:
  - 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 ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
  - In me thou seest 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 rest.
  - In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
  - That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
  - As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
  - Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
  - This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
  - To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 74
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 75
  lines:
  - So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
  - Or as sweet-seasoned 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 treasure,
  - Now counting best to be with you alone,
  - Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 76
  lines:
  - Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
  - So far from variation or quick change?
  - Why with the time do I not glance aside
  - To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
  - Why write I still all one, ever the same,
  - And keep invention in a noted weed,
  - That every word doth almost tell my name,
  - Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
  - O know sweet love I always write of you,
  - 'And you and love are still my argument:'
  - So all my best is dressing old words new,
  - 'Spending again what is already spent:'
  - For as the sun is daily new and old,
  - So is my love still telling what is told.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 77
  lines:
  - Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
  - Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,
  - These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
  - And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.
  - The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,
  - Of mouthed graves will give thee memory,
  - Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know,
  - Time's thievish progress to eternity.
  - Look what thy memory cannot contain,
  - Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
  - Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
  - To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
  - These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
  - Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 78
  lines:
  - So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,
  - And found such fair assistance in my verse,
  - As every alien pen hath got my use,
  - And under thee their poesy disperse.
  - Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,
  - And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
  - Have added feathers to the learned's wing,
  - And given grace a double majesty.
  - Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
  - Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,
  - In others' works thou dost but mend the style,
  - And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.
  - But thou art all my art, and dost advance
  - As high as learning, my rude ignorance.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 79
  lines:
  - Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
  - My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
  - But now my gracious numbers are decayed,
  - And my sick muse doth give an other place.
  - I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument
  - Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
  - Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
  - He robs thee of, and pays it thee again,
  - He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word,
  - From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give
  - 'And found it in thy cheek: he can afford'
  - No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.
  - Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
  - Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 80
  lines:
  - O how I faint when I of you do write,
  - Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
  - And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
  - To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
  - But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)
  - The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
  - My saucy bark (inferior far to his)
  - On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
  - Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
  - Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,
  - Or (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat,
  - He of tall building, and of goodly pride.
  - Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
  - The worst was this, my love was my decay.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 81
  lines:
  - Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
  - Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
  - From hence your memory death cannot take,
  - Although in me each part will be forgotten.
  - Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
  - Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,
  - The earth can yield me but a common grave,
  - When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie,
  - Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
  - Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
  - And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,
  - When all the breathers of this world are dead,
  - You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)
  - Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 82
  lines:
  - I grant thou wert not married to my muse,
  - And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
  - The dedicated words which writers use
  - Of their fair subject, blessing every book.
  - Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
  - Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,
  - And therefore art enforced to seek anew,
  - Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.
  - And do so love, yet when they have devised,
  - What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
  - Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,
  - In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.
  - And their gross painting might be better used,
  - Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 83
  lines:
  - I never saw that you did painting need,
  - And therefore to your fair no painting set,
  - I found (or thought I found) you did exceed,
  - 'That barren tender of a poet''s debt:'
  - And therefore have I slept in your report,
  - That you your self being extant well might show,
  - How far a modern quill doth come too short,
  - Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
  - This silence for my sin you did impute,
  - Which shall be most my glory being dumb,
  - For I impair not beauty being mute,
  - When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
  - There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,
  - Than both your poets can in praise devise.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 84
  lines:
  - Who is it that says most, which can say more,
  - Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you?
  - In whose confine immured is the store,
  - Which should example where your equal grew.
  - Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,
  - That to his subject lends not some small glory,
  - But he that writes of you, if he can tell,
  - That you are you, so dignifies his story.
  - Let him but copy what in you is writ,
  - Not making worse what nature made so clear,
  - And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
  - Making his style admired every where.
  - You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
  - Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 85
  lines:
  - My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,
  - While comments of your praise richly compiled,
  - Reserve their character with golden quill,
  - And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
  - I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,
  - And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,
  - To every hymn that able spirit affords,
  - In polished form of well refined pen.
  - Hearing you praised, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,
  - And to the most of praise add something more,
  - But that is in my thought, whose love to you
  - "(Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,"
  - Then others, for the breath of words respect,
  - Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 86
  lines:
  - Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
  - Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,
  - That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
  - Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
  - Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,
  - Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
  - No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
  - Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
  - He nor that affable familiar ghost
  - Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
  - As victors of my silence cannot boast,
  - I was not sick of any fear from thence.
  - But when your countenance filled up his line,
  - Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 87
  lines:
  - Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
  - And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,
  - 'The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:'
  - My bonds in thee are all determinate.
  - For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
  - And for that riches where is my deserving?
  - The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
  - And so my patent back again is swerving.
  - Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
  - Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking,
  - So thy great gift upon misprision growing,
  - Comes home again, on better judgement making.
  - Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,
  - In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 88
  lines:
  - When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
  - And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
  - Upon thy side, against my self I'll fight,
  - 'And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:'
  - With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
  - Upon thy part I can set down a story
  - 'Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:'
  - 'That thou in losing me, shalt win much glory:'
  - And I by this will be a gainer too,
  - For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
  - The injuries that to my self I do,
  - Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
  - Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
  - That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 89
  lines:
  - Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
  - And I will comment upon that offence,
  - 'Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:'
  - Against thy reasons making no defence.
  - Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,
  - To set a form upon desired change,
  - As I'll my self disgrace, knowing thy will,
  - 'I will acquaintance strangle and look strange:'
  - Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue,
  - Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,
  - 'Lest I (too much profane) should do it wronk:'
  - And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
  - For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,
  - For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 90
  lines:
  - Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,
  - Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
  - join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
  - 'And do not drop in for an after-loss:'
  - Ah do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,
  - Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,
  - Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
  - To linger out a purposed overthrow.
  - If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
  - When other petty griefs have done their spite,
  - But in the onset come, so shall I taste
  - At first the very worst of fortune's might.
  - And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
  - Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 91
  lines:
  - Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
  - Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,
  - 'Some in their garments though new-fangled ill:'
  - Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.
  - And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
  - Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,
  - But these particulars are not my measure,
  - All these I better in one general best.
  - Thy love is better than high birth to me,
  - Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,
  - 'Of more delight than hawks and horses be:'
  - And having thee, of all men's pride I boast.
  - Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,
  - All this away, and me most wretchcd make.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 92
  lines:
  - But do thy worst to steal thy self away,
  - For term of life thou art assured mine,
  - And life no longer than thy love will stay,
  - For it depends upon that love of thine.
  - Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
  - When in the least of them my life hath end,
  - I see, a better state to me belongs
  - Than that, which on thy humour doth depend.
  - Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
  - Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,
  - O what a happy title do I find,
  - Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
  - But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?
  - Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 93
  lines:
  - So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
  - Like a deceived husband, so love's face,
  - 'May still seem love to me, though altered new:'
  - Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.
  - For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
  - Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,
  - In many's looks, the false heart's history
  - Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.
  - But heaven in thy creation did decree,
  - That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,
  - Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,
  - Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.
  - How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,
  - If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 94
  lines:
  - They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
  - That do not do the thing, they most do show,
  - Who moving others, are themselves as stone,
  - 'Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:'
  - They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
  - And husband nature's riches from expense,
  - Tibey are the lords and owners of their faces,
  - 'Others, but stewards of their excellence:'
  - The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
  - Though to it self, it only live and die,
  - But if that flower with base infection meet,
  - 'The basest weed outbraves his dignity:'
  - For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,
  - Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 95
  lines:
  - How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,
  - Which like a canker in the fragrant rose,
  - Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
  - O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
  - That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
  - "(Making lascivious comments on thy sport)"
  - Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,
  - Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.
  - O what a mansion have those vices got,
  - Which for their habitation chose out thee,
  - Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,
  - And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!
  - Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,
  - The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 96
  lines:
  - Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
  - Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,
  - 'Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:'
  - 'Thou mak''st faults graces, that to thee resort:'
  - As on the finger of a throned queen,
  - 'The basest jewel will be well esteemed:'
  - So are those errors that in thee are seen,
  - To truths translated, and for true things deemed.
  - How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
  - If like a lamb he could his looks translate!
  - How many gazers mightst thou lead away,
  - if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!
  - But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
  - As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 97
  lines:
  - How like a winter hath my absence been
  - From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
  - What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
  - What old December's bareness everywhere!
  - And yet this time removed was summer's time,
  - The teeming autumn big with rich increase,
  - Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
  - 'Like widowed wombs after their lords'' decease:'
  - Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
  - But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,
  - For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
  - And thou away, the very birds are mute.
  - Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,
  - That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 98
  lines:
  - From you have I been absent in the spring,
  - When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)
  - 'Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:'
  - That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
  - Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
  - Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
  - 'Could make me any summer''s story tell:'
  - 'Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:'
  - Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
  - Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,
  - 'They were but sweet, but figures of delight:'
  - Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
  - Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,
  - As with your shadow I with these did play.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 99
  lines:
  - The forward violet thus did I chide,
  - Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
  - If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
  - Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells,
  - In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
  - The lily I condemned for thy hand,
  - And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair,
  - The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
  - 'One blushing shame, another white despair:'
  - A third nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both,
  - And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,
  - But for his theft in pride of all his growth
  - A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
  - More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
  - But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 100
  lines:
  - Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,
  - To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
  - Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
  - Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
  - Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
  - In gentle numbers time so idly spent,
  - Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,
  - And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
  - Rise resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
  - If time have any wrinkle graven there,
  - If any, be a satire to decay,
  - And make time's spoils despised everywhere.
  - Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
  - So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 101
  lines:
  - O truant Muse what shall be thy amends,
  - For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
  - 'Both truth and beauty on my love depends:'
  - 'So dost thou too, and therein dignified:'
  - Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,
  - "'Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,"
  - 'Beauty no pencil, beauty''s truth to lay:'
  - But best is best, if never intermixed'?
  - Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
  - Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee,
  - 'To make him much outlive a gilded tomb:'
  - And to be praised of ages yet to be.
  - Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,
  - To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 102
  lines:
  - My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,
  - I love not less, though less the show appear,
  - That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,
  - The owner's tongue doth publish every where.
  - Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
  - When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
  - As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
  - 'And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:'
  - Not that the summer is less pleasant now
  - Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
  - But that wild music burthens every bough,
  - And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
  - 'Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:'
  - Because I would not dull you with my song.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 103
  lines:
  - Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,
  - That having such a scope to show her pride,
  - The argument all bare is of more worth
  - Than when it hath my added praise beside.
  - O blame me not if I no more can write!
  - Look in your glass and there appears a face,
  - That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
  - Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
  - Were it not sinful then striving to mend,
  - To mar the subject that before was well?
  - For to no other pass my verses tend,
  - Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.
  - And more, much more than in my verse can sit,
  - Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 104
  lines:
  - To me fair friend you never can be old,
  - For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
  - 'Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold,'
  - Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
  - Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,
  - In process of the seasons have I seen,
  - Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
  - Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.
  - Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand,
  - Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,
  - So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand
  - Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.
  - For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,
  - Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 105
  lines:
  - Let not my love be called idolatry,
  - Nor my beloved as an idol show,
  - Since all alike my songs and praises be
  - To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
  - Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
  - Still constant in a wondrous excellence,
  - Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
  - One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
  - Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,
  - Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words,
  - And in this change is my invention spent,
  - Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
  - Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.
  - Which three till now, never kept seat in one.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 106
  lines:
  - When in the chronicle of wasted time,
  - I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
  - And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
  - In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,
  - Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
  - Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 107
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 108
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 109
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 110
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 111
  lines:
  - 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.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 112
  lines:
  - 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?
  - You are my all the world, and I must strive,
  - To know my shames and praises from your tongue,
  - None else to me, nor I to none alive,
  - That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.
  - In so profound abysm I throw all care
  - Of others' voices, that my adder's sense,
  - 'To critic and to flatterer stopped are:'
  - Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.
  - You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
  - That all the world besides methinks are dead.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 113
  lines:
  - Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
  - And that which governs me to go about,
  - Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
  - 'Seems seeing, but effectually is out:'
  - For it no form delivers to the heart
  - Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,
  - Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
  - 'Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:'
  - For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
  - The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
  - 'The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:'
  - The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
  - Incapable of more, replete with you,
  - My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 114
  lines:
  - Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you
  - Drink up the monarch's plague this flattery?
  - Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
  - And that your love taught it this alchemy?
  - To make of monsters, and things indigest,
  - Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
  - Creating every bad a perfect best
  - 'As fast as objects to his beams assemble:'
  - O 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,
  - And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,
  - Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,
  - And to his palate doth prepare the cup.
  - If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,
  - That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 115
  lines:
  - Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
  - Even those that said I could not love you dearer,
  - Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,
  - My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,
  - But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents
  - Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
  - Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
  - 'Divert strong minds to the course of alt''ring things:'
  - Alas why fearing of time's tyranny,
  - Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'
  - When I was certain o'er incertainty,
  - Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
  - Love is a babe, then might I not say so
  - To give full growth to that which still doth grow.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 116
  lines:
  - Let me not to the marriage of true minds
  - Admit impediments, love is not love
  - Which alters when it alteration finds,
  - Or bends with the remover to remove.
  - O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
  - That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
  - It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
  - Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
  - Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
  - Within his bending sickle's compass come,
  - Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
  - 'But bears it out even to the edge of doom:'
  - If this be error and upon me proved,
  - I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 117
  lines:
  - Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,
  - Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
  - Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
  - Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,
  - That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
  - And given to time your own dear-purchased right,
  - That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
  - Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
  - Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
  - And on just proof surmise, accumulate,
  - Bring me within the level of your frown,
  - 'But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:'
  - Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
  - The constancy and virtue of your love.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 118
  lines:
  - Like as to make our appetite more keen
  - With eager compounds we our palate urge,
  - As to prevent our maladies unseen,
  - We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
  - Even so being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,
  - To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
  - And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,
  - To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
  - Thus policy in love t' anticipate
  - The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
  - And brought to medicine a healthful state
  - Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.
  - But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
  - Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 119
  lines:
  - What potions have I drunk of Siren tears
  - Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
  - Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
  - Still losing when I saw my self to win!
  - What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
  - Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!
  - How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
  - In the distraction of this madding fever!
  - O benefit of ill, now I find true
  - That better is, by evil still made better.
  - And ruined love when it is built anew
  - Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
  - So I return rebuked to my content,
  - And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 120
  lines:
  - That you were once unkind befriends me now,
  - And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
  - Needs must I under my transgression bow,
  - Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.
  - For if you were by my unkindness shaken
  - As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time,
  - And I a tyrant have no leisure taken
  - To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
  - O that our night of woe might have remembered
  - My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
  - And soon to you, as you to me then tendered
  - The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
  - But that your trespass now becomes a fee,
  - Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 121
  lines:
  - "'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,"
  - When not to be, receives reproach of being,
  - And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,
  - Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.
  - For why should others' false adulterate eyes
  - Give salutation to my sportive blood?
  - Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
  - Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
  - No, I am that I am, and they that level
  - At my abuses, reckon up their own,
  - I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
  - By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown
  - Unless this general evil they maintain,
  - All men are bad and in their badness reign.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 122
  lines:
  - Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
  - Full charactered with lasting memory,
  - Which shall above that idle rank remain
  - Beyond all date even to eternity.
  - Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
  - Have faculty by nature to subsist,
  - Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
  - 'Of thee, thy record never can be missed:'
  - That poor retention could not so much hold,
  - Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,
  - Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
  - 'To trust those tables that receive thee more:'
  - To keep an adjunct to remember thee
  - Were to import forgetfulness in me.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 123
  lines:
  - No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,
  - Thy pyramids built up with newer might
  - To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,
  - 'They are but dressings Of a former sight:'
  - Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire,
  - What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
  - And rather make them born to our desire,
  - 'Than think that we before have heard them told:'
  - Thy registers and thee I both defy,
  - Not wond'ring at the present, nor the past,
  - For thy records, and what we see doth lie,
  - 'Made more or less by thy continual haste:'
  - This I do vow and this shall ever be,
  - I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 124
  lines:
  - If my dear love were but the child of state,
  - It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,
  - As subject to time's love or to time's hate,
  - Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
  - No it was builded far from accident,
  - It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
  - Under the blow of thralled discontent,
  - 'Whereto th'' inviting time our fashion calls:'
  - It fears not policy that heretic,
  - Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,
  - But all alone stands hugely politic,
  - That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
  - To this I witness call the fools of time,
  - Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 125
  lines:
  - Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
  - With my extern the outward honouring,
  - Or laid great bases for eternity,
  - Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
  - Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
  - Lose all, and more by paying too much rent
  - For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,
  - Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?
  - No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
  - And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
  - Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
  - But mutual render, only me for thee.
  - Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul
  - When most impeached, stands least in thy control.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 126
  lines:
  - O thou my lovely boy who in thy power,
  - 'Dost hold Time''s fickle glass his fickle hour:'
  - Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st,
  - Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.
  - If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)
  - As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,
  - She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
  - May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.
  - Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,
  - She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!
  - Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
  - And her quietus is to render thee.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 127
  lines:
  - In the old age black was not counted fair,
  - 'Or if it were it bore not beauty''s name:'
  - But now is black beauty's successive heir,
  - And beauty slandered with a bastard shame,
  - For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
  - Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,
  - Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,
  - But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
  - Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
  - Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,
  - At such who not born fair no beauty lack,
  - Slandering creation with a false esteem,
  - Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
  - That every tongue says beauty should look so.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 128
  lines:
  - How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,
  - Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
  - With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st
  - The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
  - Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
  - To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
  - Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
  - At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand.
  - To be so tickled they would change their state
  - And situation with those dancing chips,
  - O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
  - Making dead wood more blest than living lips,
  - Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
  - Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 129
  lines:
  - Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
  - Is lust in action, and till action, lust
  - Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody full of blame,
  - Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
  - Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,
  - Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
  - Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,
  - On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
  - Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
  - Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,
  - A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,
  - Before a joy proposed behind a dream.
  - All this the world well knows yet none knows well,
  - To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 130
  lines:
  - My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
  - Coral is far more red, than her lips red,
  - 'If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:'
  - 'If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:'
  - I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
  - But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
  - And in some perfumes is there more delight,
  - Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
  - I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
  - 'That music hath a far more pleasing sound:'
  - I grant I never saw a goddess go,
  - My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
  - And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,
  - As any she belied with false compare.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 131
  lines:
  - Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
  - As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
  - For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
  - Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
  - Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,
  - Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;
  - To say they err, I dare not be so bold,
  - Although I swear it to my self alone.
  - And to be sure that is not false I swear,
  - A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,
  - One on another's neck do witness bear
  - Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
  - In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
  - And thence this slander as I think proceeds.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 132
  lines:
  - Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,
  - Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
  - Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
  - Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
  - And truly not the morning sun of heaven
  - Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
  - Nor that full star that ushers in the even
  - Doth half that glory to the sober west
  - 'As those two mourning eyes become thy face:'
  - O let it then as well beseem thy heart
  - To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
  - And suit thy pity like in every part.
  - Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
  - And all they foul that thy complexion lack.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 133
  lines:
  - Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
  - For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;
  - Is't not enough to torture me alone,
  - But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?
  - Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,
  - And my next self thou harder hast engrossed,
  - Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,
  - 'A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:'
  - Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,
  - But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail,
  - Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,
  - Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.
  - And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,
  - Perforce am thine and all that is in me.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 134
  lines:
  - So now I have confessed that he is thine,
  - And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,
  - My self I'll forfeit, so that other mine,
  - 'Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:'
  - But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
  - For thou art covetous, and he is kind,
  - He learned but surety-like to write for me,
  - Under that bond that him as fist doth bind.
  - The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
  - Thou usurer that put'st forth all to use,
  - And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,
  - So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
  - Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,
  - He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 135
  lines:
  - Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,
  - And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus,
  - More than enough am I that vex thee still,
  - To thy sweet will making addition thus.
  - Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious,
  - Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
  - Shall will in others seem right gracious,
  - And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
  - The sea all water, yet receives rain still,
  - And in abundance addeth to his store,
  - So thou being rich in will add to thy will
  - One will of mine to make thy large will more.
  - Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,
  - Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 136
  lines:
  - If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
  - Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will',
  - And will thy soul knows is admitted there,
  - Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.
  - "'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love,"
  - Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,
  - In things of great receipt with case we prove,
  - Among a number one is reckoned none.
  - Then in the number let me pass untold,
  - Though in thy store's account I one must be,
  - For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,
  - That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.
  - Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
  - And then thou lov'st me for my name is Will.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 137
  lines:
  - Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
  - That they behold and see not what they see?
  - They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
  - Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
  - If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,
  - Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,
  - Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
  - Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
  - Why should my heart think that a several plot,
  - Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?
  - Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not
  - To put fair truth upon so foul a face?
  - In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,
  - And to this false plague are they now transferred.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 138
  lines:
  - When my love swears that she is made of truth,
  - I do believe her though I know she lies,
  - That she might think me some untutored youth,
  - Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
  - Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
  - Although she knows my days are past the best,
  - Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue,
  - 'On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:'
  - But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
  - And wherefore say not I that I am old?
  - O love's best habit is in seeming trust,
  - And age in love, loves not to have years told.
  - Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
  - And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 139
  lines:
  - O call not me to justify the wrong,
  - That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,
  - Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,
  - Use power with power, and slay me not by art,
  - Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,
  - Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,
  - What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might
  - Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?
  - Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,
  - Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,
  - And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
  - 'That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:'
  - Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,
  - Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 140
  lines:
  - Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press
  - 'My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:'
  - Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,
  - The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
  - If I might teach thee wit better it were,
  - Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,
  - As testy sick men when their deaths be near,
  - No news but health from their physicians know.
  - For if I should despair I should grow mad,
  - And in my madness might speak ill of thee,
  - Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
  - Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
  - That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
  - Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 141
  lines:
  - In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
  - For they in thee a thousand errors note,
  - But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
  - Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.
  - Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted,
  - Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,
  - Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
  - 'To any sensual feast with thee alone:'
  - But my five wits, nor my five senses can
  - Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
  - Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
  - 'Thy proud heart''s slave and vassal wretch to be:'
  - Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
  - That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 142
  lines:
  - Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
  - Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,
  - O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,
  - And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,
  - Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,
  - That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,
  - And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,
  - Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents.
  - Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those,
  - Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,
  - Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,
  - Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
  - If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
  - By self-example mayst thou be denied.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 143
  lines:
  - Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch,
  - One of her feathered creatures broke away,
  - Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch
  - 'In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:'
  - Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
  - Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent,
  - 'To follow that which flies before her face:'
  - Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;
  - So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,
  - Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,
  - 'But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:'
  - And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind.
  - So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,
  - If thou turn back and my loud crying still.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 144
  lines:
  - Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
  - Which like two spirits do suggest me still,
  - 'The better angel is a man right fair:'
  - The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
  - To win me soon to hell my female evil,
  - Tempteth my better angel from my side,
  - 'And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:'
  - Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
  - And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
  - Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,
  - But being both from me both to each friend,
  - I guess one angel in another's hell.
  - Yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt,
  - Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 145
  lines:
  - Those lips that Love's own hand did make,
  - Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',
  - 'To me that languished for her sake:'
  - But when she saw my woeful state,
  - Straight in her heart did mercy come,
  - Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,
  - 'Was used in giving gentle doom:'
  - 'And taught it thus anew to greet:'
  - "'I hate' she altered with an end,"
  - That followed it as gentle day,
  - Doth follow night who like a fiend
  - From heaven to hell is flown away.
  - "'I hate', from hate away she threw,"
  - And saved my life saying 'not you'.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 146
  lines:
  - Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth,
  - My sinful earth these rebel powers array,
  - Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth
  - Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
  - Why so large cost having so short a lease,
  - Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
  - Shall worms inheritors of this excess
  - Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?
  - Then soul live thou upon thy servant's loss,
  - And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
  - Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
  - Within be fed, without be rich no more,
  - So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
  - And death once dead, there's no more dying then.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 147
  lines:
  - My love is as a fever longing still,
  - For that which longer nurseth the disease,
  - Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
  - 'Th'' uncertain sickly appetite to please:'
  - My reason the physician to my love,
  - Angry that his prescriptions are not kept
  - Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
  - Desire is death, which physic did except.
  - Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
  - And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,
  - My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,
  - At random from the truth vainly expressed.
  - For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
  - Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 148
  lines:
  - O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
  - Which have no correspondence with true sight,
  - Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,
  - That censures falsely what they see aright?
  - If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
  - What means the world to say it is not so?
  - If it be not, then love doth well denote,
  - 'Love''s eye is not so true as all men''s: no,'
  - How can it? O how can love's eye be true,
  - That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
  - No marvel then though I mistake my view,
  - The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.
  - O cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind,
  - Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 149
  lines:
  - Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,
  - When I against my self with thee partake?
  - Do I not think on thee when I forgot
  - Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake?
  - Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,
  - On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,
  - Nay if thou lour'st on me do I not spend
  - Revenge upon my self with present moan?
  - What merit do I in my self respect,
  - That is so proud thy service to despise,
  - When all my best doth worship thy defect,
  - Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
  - But love hate on for now I know thy mind,
  - Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 150
  lines:
  - O from what power hast thou this powerful might,
  - With insufficiency my heart to sway,
  - To make me give the lie to my true sight,
  - And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
  - Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
  - That in the very refuse of thy deeds,
  - There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
  - That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?
  - Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
  - The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
  - O though I love what others do abhor,
  - With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.
  - If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
  - More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 151
  lines:
  - Love is too young to know what conscience is,
  - Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
  - Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,
  - Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
  - For thou betraying me, I do betray
  - My nobler part to my gross body's treason,
  - My soul doth tell my body that he may,
  - Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,
  - But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
  - As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,
  - He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
  - To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
  - No want of conscience hold it that I call,
  - Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 152
  lines:
  - In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
  - But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,
  - In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,
  - 'In vowing new hate after new love bearing:'
  - But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
  - When I break twenty? I am perjured most,
  - 'For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:'
  - And all my honest faith in thee is lost.
  - 'For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:'
  - Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,
  - And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,
  - Or made them swear against the thing they see.
  - 'For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I,'
  - To swear against the truth so foul a be.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 153
  lines:
  - Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,
  - A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
  - And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
  - 'In a cold valley-fountain of that ground:'
  - Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love,
  - A dateless lively heat still to endure,
  - And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove,
  - 'Against strange maladies a sovereign cure:'
  - But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,
  - The boy for trial needs would touch my breast,
  - I sick withal the help of bath desired,
  - And thither hied a sad distempered guest.
  - But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,
  - Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.
- !ruby/object:Sonnet
  number: 154
  lines:
  - The little Love-god lying once asleep,
  - Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
  - Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,
  - Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,
  - The fairest votary took up that fire,
  - Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,
  - And so the general of hot desire,
  - Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.
  - This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
  - Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
  - Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
  - For men discased, but I my mistress' thrall,
  - Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
  - Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.