William Shakespeare
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Winter
¶WHEN icicles hang by the wallAnd Dick the shepherd blows his nail,And Tom bears logs into the hall,And milk comes frozen home in pail;When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,Then nighdy sings the staring owlTu-whoo!To-whit, Tu-whoo! A merry note!While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
¶When all about the wind doth blow,And coughing drowns the parson's saw,And birds sit brooding in the snow,And Marian's nose looks red and raw;When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl—Then nightly sings the staring owlTu-whoo!To-whit, Tu-whoo! A merry note!While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
O Mistress Mine
¶O MISTRESS mine, where are you roaming?O stay and hear! your true-love's comingThat can sing both high and low;Trip no further, pretty sweeting,Journeys end in lovers' meeting—Every wise man's son doth know.
¶What is love? 'tis not hereafter;Present mirth hath present laughter;What's to come is still unsure:In delay there lies no plenty,—Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty,Youth's a stuff will not endure.
Fancy
¶It is engender'd in the eyes;With gazing fed; and Fancy diesIn the cradle where it lies:Let us all ring Fancy's knell;I'll begin it,—Ding, dong, bell.—Ding, dong, bell.
Under the Greenwood Tree
¶UNDER the greenwood treeWho loves to lie with me,And tune his merry noteUnto the sweet bird's throat—Come hither, come hither, come hither!Here shall he seeNo enemyBut winter and rough weather.
¶Who doth ambition shunAnd loves to live i' the sun,Seeking the food he eatsAnd pleased with what he gets—Come hither, come hither, come hither!Here shall he seeNo enemyBut winter and rough weather.
A Lover and His Lass
¶IT was a lover and his lassWith a hey and a ho, and a hey-nonino!That o'er the green corn-field did passIn the spring time, the only pretty ring time,When birds do sing hey ding a ding:Sweet lovers love the Spring.[264]Between the acres of the ryeThese pretty country folks would lie:This carol they began that hour,How that life was but a flower:
¶And therefore take the present timeWith a hey and a ho, and a hey-nonino!For love is crowned with the primeIn the spring time, the only pretty ring time,When birds do sing hey ding a ding:Sweet lovers love the Spring.
Silvia
¶WHO is Silvia? What is she?That all our swains commend her?Holy, fair, and wise is she:The heaven such grace did lend her,That she might admired be.
¶Is she kind as she is fair?For beauty lives with kindness:Love doth to her eyes repair,To help him of his blindness;And, being help'd, inhabits there.
¶Then to Silvia let us sing,That Silvia is excelling;She excels each mortal thingUpon the dull earth dwelling:To her let us garlands bring.
Spring
¶WHEN daisies pied and violets blue,And lady-smocks all silver-white, ,And cuckoo-buds of yellow hueDo paint the meadows with delight,The cuckoo then, on every tree,Mocks married men; for thus sings he,Cuckoo![265]Cuckoo, cuckoo!—O word of fear,Unpleasing to a married ear!
¶When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,When turdes tread, and rooks, and daws,And maidens bleach their summer smocks,The cuckoo then, on every tree,Mocks married men; for thus sings he,Cuckoo!Cuckoo, cuckoo!—O word of fear,Unpleasing to a married ear!
Lullaby
¶You spotted snakes with double tongue,Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong;Come not near our fairy queen.
¶Philomel, with melody,Sing in our sweet lullaby;Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!Never harm,Nor spell nor charm,Come our lovely lady nigh;So, good night, with lullaby.
¶Weaving spiders, come not here;Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!Beetles black, approach not near;Worm nor snail, do no offence.
¶Philomel, with melody,Sing in our sweet lullaby;Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby!Never harm,Nor spell nor charm,Come our lovely lady nigh;So, good night, with lullaby.
Ophelia's Song
¶White his shroud as the mountain snow,Larded with sweet flowers,Which bewept to the grave did goWith true-love showers.
Where the Bee Sucks
¶WHERE the bee sucks, there suck I:In a cowslip's bell I lie;There I couch when owls do cry.On the bat's back I do fly.After summer merrily:Merrily, merrily, shall I live nowUnder the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Love's Perjuries
¶ON a day, alack the day!Love, whose month is ever May,Spied a blossom passing fairPlaying in the wanton air;Through the velvet leaves the wind,All unseen, 'gan passage find;That the lover, sick to death,Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;Air, would I might triumph so!But, alack, my hand is swornNe'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:[267]Vow, alack, for youth unmeet;Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.Do not call it sin in meThat I am forsworn for thee:Thou for whom e'en Jove would swearJuno but an Ethiope were,And deny himself for Jove,Turning mortal for thy love.
Take, O Take
¶TAKE, O take those lips awayThat so sweetly were forsworn,And those eyes, the break of day,Lights that do mislead the morn:But my kisses bring again,Bring again—Seals of love, but seal'd in vain,Seal'd in vain!
A Madrigal
¶CRABBED Age and YouthCannot live together:Youth is full of pleasance,Age is full of care;Youth like summer morn,Age like winter weather,Youth like summer brave,Age like winter bare:Youth is full of sport,Age's breath is short,Youth is nimble, Age is lame: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;O! my Love, my Love is young!Age, I do defy thee—O sweet shepherd, hie thee,For methinks thou stay'st too long.
w; AMIENS' SONG
¶BLOW, blow, thou winter wind,Thou art not so unkindAs man's ingratitude;Thy tooth is not so keenBecause thou art not seen,Although thy breath be rude.Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:Then, heigh ho! the holly!This life is most jolly.
¶Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,Thou dost not bite so nighAs benefits forgot:Though thou the waters warp,Thy sting is not so sharpAs friend remember'd not.Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:Then, heigh ho! the holly!This life is most jolly.
104 Dawn Song
¶HARK! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,And Phoebus 'gins arise,His steeds to water at those springsOn chaliced flowers that lies;And winking Mary-buds beginTo ope their golden eyes:With everything that pretty bin,My lady sweet, arise!Arise, arise!
/ 0 5 Dirge of Love
¶COME away, come away, Death,And in sad cypres let me be laid;Fly away, fly away, breath;I am slain by a fair cruel maid.[269]My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,O prepare it!My part of death no one so trueDid share it.
¶Not a flower, not a flower sweetOn my black coffin let there be strown;Not a friend, not a friend greetMy poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown;A thousand thousand sighs to save,Lay me, O whereSad true lover never find my grave,To weep there.
Fidele's Dirge
¶FEAR no more the heat o' the sunNor the furious winter's rages;Thou thy worldly task hast done,Home art gone and ta'en thy wages:Golden lads and girls all must,As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
¶Fear no more the frown o' the great,Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;Care no more to clothe and eat;To thee the reed is as the oak:The sceptre, learning, physic, mustAll follow this, and come to dust.
¶Fear no more the lightning-flashNor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;Fear not slander, censure rash;Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:All lovers young, all lovers mustConsign to thee, and come to dust.
¶No exorciser harm thee!Nor no witchcraft charm thee!Ghost unlaid forbear thee!Nothing ill come near thee!Quiet consummation have;And renowned be thy grave!
Ioj a Sea Dirge
¶FULL fathom five thy father lies:Of his bones are coral made;Those are pearls that were his eyes:Nothing of him that doth fade,But doth suffer a sea-changeInto something rich and strange.Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:Hark! now I hear them,—Ding, dong, bell.
108 Eighteenth Sonnet
¶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 dimm'd:And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd.But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shadeWhen in eternal lines to time thou growest.So long as men can breathe, or eyes can seeSo long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
109 Twenty-ninth Sonnet
¶WHEN in disgrace with fortune and men's eyesI all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,And look upon myself, and curse my fate;Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,Featured like him, like him with friends possest,Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,With what I most enjoy contented least;Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,Haply I think on thee—and then my state,Like to the lark at break of day arising[271]From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;For thy sweet love remember'd, such wealth bringsThat then I scorn to change my state with kings.
no THIRTIETH SONNET
¶WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI 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 cancell'd woe,And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight.Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,And heavily from woe to woe tell o'erThe 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.
7 / / Thirty-first Sonnet
¶THY bosom is endeared with all heartsWhich 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 tearHath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,As interest of the dead!—which now appearBut 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.
772 Thirty-second Sonnet
¶IF thou survive my well-contented dayWhen that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,And shalt by fortune once more re-survey[272]These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover;Compare them with the bettering of the time,And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,Reserve them for my love, not for their rhymeExceeded 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.'
1/3 Thirty-third Sonnet
¶FULL many a glorious morning have I seenFlatter 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 rideWith 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 shineWith all-triumphant splendour on my brow;But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;The region-cloud hath mask'd him from me now.Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sunstaineth.
114 Fifty-fourth Sonnet
¶O HOW much more doth beauty beauteous seemBy that sweet ornament which truth doth give!The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deemFor that sweet odour which doth in it live.The Canker-blooms have full as deep a dyeAs the perfumed tincture of the Roses,Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonlyWhen summer's breath their masked buds discloses;But—for their virtue only is their show—[273]They live unwoo'd 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 fade, my verse distils your truth.
775 Fifty-fifth Sonnet
¶NOT marble, nor the gilded monumentsOf princes, shall oudive this powerful rhyme;But you shall shine more bright in these contentsThan unswept stone, besmear'd 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 burnThe living record of your memory.'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmityShall you pace forth; your praise shall still find roomEven in the eyes of all posterityThat wear this world out to the ending doom.So, till the judgment that yourself arise,You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
/ / 6 Fifty-seventh Sonnet
¶BEING your slave, what should I do but tendUpon the hours and times of your desire?I have no precious time at all to spendNor services to do, till you require:Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hourWhilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,Nor think the bitterness of absence sourWhen you have bid your servant once adieu:Nor dare I question with my jealous thoughtWhere you may be, or your affairs suppose,But like a sad slave, stay and think of noughtSave, where you are, how happy you make those.So true a fool is love, that in your will,Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.
Sixtieth Sonnet
¶LIKE as the waves make towards the pebbled shoreSo 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 crown'd,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 standPraising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
Sixty-fourth Sonnet
¶WHEN I have seen by Time's fell hand defacedThe rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,And brass eternal, slave to mortal rage;When I have seen the hungry ocean gainAdvantage 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 itself 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 chooseBut weep to have that which it fears to lose.
Sixty-fifth Sonnet
¶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 outAgainst the wreckful siege of battering days,[275]When rocks impregnable are not so stoutNor 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.
/20 Sixty-sixth Sonnet
¶TIRED with all these, for restful death I cry,—As, to behold desert a beggar born,And needy nothing trimm'd 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 miscall'd simplicity,And captive Good attending captain 111:Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,Save that, to die, I leave my Love alone.
727 Seventy-first Sonnet
¶No longer mourn for me when I am deadThan you shall hear the surly sullen bellGive warning to the world, that I am fledFrom this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell;Nay, if you read this line, remember notThe hand that writ it; for I love you so,That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgotIf thinking on me then should make you woe.O, if, I say, you look upon this verseWhen 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.
Seventy-third Sonnet
¶THAT time of year thou may'st in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang:In me thou see'st the twilight of such dayAs 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 lieAs the deathbed whereon it must expire,Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by:This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love morestrong,To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Eighty-seventh Sonnet
¶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.Thyself 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 judgment making.Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter;In sleep, a king; but waking, no such matter.
Ninetieth Sonnet
¶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:[277]Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,Come in the rearward of a conquer'd 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 tasteAt 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.
725 Ninety-fourth Sonnet
¶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;They 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 itself 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.
726 Ninety-seventh Sonnet
¶How like a winter hath my absence beenFrom 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 primeLike widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:Yet this abundant issue seem'd to meBut hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,And, thou away, the very birds are mute;[278]Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.
Ninety-eighth Sonnet
¶FROM you have I been absent in the spring,When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smellOf 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 seem'd it Winter still, and you, away,As with your shadow I with these did play.
One Hundred and Fourth Sonnet
¶To me, fair friend, you never can be old,For as you were when first your eye I eyedSuch seems your beauty still. Three winters coldHave from the forests shook three summers' pride;Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'dIn process of the seasons have I seen,Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,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.
One Hundred and Sixth Sonnet
¶WHEN in the chronicle of wasted timeI see descriptions of the fairest wights,And beauty making beautiful old rhyme[279]In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights;Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's bestOf hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,I see their antique pen would have exprestEv'n such a beauty as you master now.So all their praises are but propheciesOf this our time, all, you prefiguring;And for they look'd 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.
One Hundred and Seventh Sonnet
¶NOT mine own fears, nor the prophetic soulOf the wide world, dreaming on things to come,Can yet the lease of my true love control,Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'dAnd the sad augurs mock their own presage;Incertainties now crown themselves assur'dAnd peace proclaims olives of endless age.Now with the drops of this most balmy timeMy 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.
One Hundred and Ninth Sonnet
¶O, NEVER say that I was false of heart,Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify:As easy might I from myself departAs 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 myself bring water for my stain.Never believe, though in my nature reign'dAll frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,[280]That it could so preposterously be stain'd,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.
132 One Hundred and Tenth Sonnet
¶ALAS, 'tis true I have gone here and thereAnd made myself a motley to the view,Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,Made old offences of affections new;Most true it is that I have look'd on truthAskance and strangely: but, by all above,These blenches gave my heart another youth,And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.Now all is done, have what shall have no end:Mine appetite I never more will grindOn newer proof, to try an older friend,A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.
One Hundred and Eleventh Sonnet
¶O, FOR my sake do you with Fortune chide,The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,That did not better for my life provideThan public means, which public manners breeds.Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,And almost thence my nature is subdu'dTo what it works in, like the dyer's hand.Pity me then and wish I were renew'd;Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drinkPotions 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 yeEven that your pity is enough to cure me.
p. 281¶134 ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEENTH SONNET
¶LET me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove:O no! it is an ever-fixed markThat looks on tempests, and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark,Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle's compass come;Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out ev'n to the edge of doom:If this be error, and upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
¶/ J 5 ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINTH SONNET
¶TH' expense of Spirit in a waste of shameIs lust in action; and till action, lustIs perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had,Past reason hated, as a swallow'd baitOn 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 wellTo shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
¶136 ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIXTH SONNET
¶POOR Soul, the centre of my sinful earth,Fool'd by these rebel powers that thee 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,[282]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 shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,And, death once dead, there's no more dying then.
One Hundred and Forty-eighth Sonnet
¶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 fledThat 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 denoteLove'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 vex'd with watching and with tears?No marvel then though I mistake my view:The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find!