AREWELL! THOU ART TOO
DEAR FOR MY POSSESSING,
AND LIKE ENOUGH THOU
KNOW'ST THY ESTIMATE:

F

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 judgement making.

Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

HEN HATE ME WHEN THOU
WILT: IF EVER, NOW;

T

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 scap'd this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purpos'd 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,
Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so.

HEY THAT HAVE POWER TO
HURT, AND WILL DO NONE,
THAT DO NOT DO THE THING
THEY MOST DO SHOW,

T

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.

F

ROM YOU HAVE I BEEN ABSENT
IN THE SPRING,

WHEN PROUD-PIED APRIL
(DREST IN ALL HIS TRIM)
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,

That heavy Saturn laught and leapt 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 lilies' 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.

Y LOVE IS STRENGTH'NED
THOUGH MORE WEAK

M

IN SEEMING;

I love not less, though less the show appear:
That love is marchandiz'd whose rich
esteeming

The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere.
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.