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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 odors made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,— When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth.

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 yourself arise,

You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

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.

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?
Oh! how shall summer's honey-breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays? Oh, 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?

Oh, none! unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

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 honor 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.

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 entombèd 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.

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 everything,

That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him;

Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell

Of different flowers in odor 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.

THE forward violet thus did I chide: :

[smells,

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that

If not from my love's breath? the purple pride

Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells,

In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemnèd for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair;
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair:

A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both,
And to this 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 color it had stolen from thee.

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.

NOT mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul

Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,

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Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a cónfined 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.

TH' EXPENSE of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action: and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, 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.

Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold;

Youth is wild, and age is tame.
Age, I do abhor thee,

Youth, I do adore thee;
Oh, my love, my love is young!
Age, I do defy thee;

O sweet shepherd! hie thee,
For methinks thou stay'st too long.

B

BEAUTY

From The Passionate Pilgrim'

EAUTY is but a vain and doubtful good:

A shining gloss that fadeth suddenly;

A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud; A brittle glass, that's broken presently; A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.

And as goods lost are seld or never found;
As faded gloss no rubbing will refresh ;
As flowers dead lie withered on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress:
So beauty blemished once, for ever lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.

LIVE WITH ME

From The Passionate Pilgrim'

IVE with me and be my love,

L

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

And the craggy mountain yields.

There will we sit upon the rocks,

And see the shepherds feed their flocks

By shallow rivers, to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There will I make thee a bed of roses,
With a thousand fragrant posies;