O ME, FAIR FRIEND, YOU NEVER
CAN BE OLD;
FOR AS YOU WERE WHEN FIRST
YOUR EYE I EY'D,
SUCH SEEMS YOUR BEAUTY
STILL. THREE WINTERS COLD
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride;
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd
In 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 perceiv'd,
So your sweet hue, which me thinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd.
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
HEN IN THE CHRONICLE
OF WASTED TIME
I SEE DESCRIPTIONS OF
THE FAIREST WIGHTS,
AND BEAUTY MAKING
BEAUTIFUL OLD RIME,
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 exprest
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 look'd but with divining eyes,
They had not still enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
OT MINE OWN FEARS, NOR
THE PROPHETIC SOUL
OF THE WIDE WORLD DREAM-
ING 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'd,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd,
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 rime,
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.
ET 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.
H' EXPENSE OF SPIRIT IN A
WASTE OF SHAME
IS LUST IN ACTION; AND
TILL ACTION, LUST
IS PERJUR'D, MURD'ROUS,
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 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 prov'd a very woe;
Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
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