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They are the lords and owners of their faces.
Others but stewards of their excellence,
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Tho' to itself it only live and die;

But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed out-braves his dignity:

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.

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!
Oh! in what sweets dost thou thy sins inclose!
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.
Oh what a mansion have those vices got,
Which for their habitation choose out thee:
Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turn to fair that eyes can see!
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
The hardest knife, ill us'd, doth lose his edge.

COMPLAINT FOR HIS LOVE'S ABSENCE.
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 barrenness every where !
And yet this time remov'd was summer's time;
The teeming autumn big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lord's decease..
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me,
But hope of orphans and unfather'd 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. From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud pied April (drest in all his trim) Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.

Yet not 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,

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Nor praise the deep vermillion in the rose ;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those :
You seem'd it winter still, and you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.
The forward violet thus did I chide;
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 dy'd:
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 not red, nor white, had stol'n of both,
And to his robb'ry has annex'd 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.

AN INVOCATION TO HIS MUSE.

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,
Dark'ning thy power to lend base subjects light
Return, forgetful muse, and strait redeem,
In gentle numbers, time so idly spent ;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,
And give thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise, resty muse, my love's sweet face survey,
If time hath any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,

And make time's spoils despised every where.

Give my love fame, faster than time wastes life,
So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife..

Oh! truant muse! what shall be thy amends,
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd ?

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But truth and beauty on my love depends:
So dost thou too, and therein dignify'd.
Make answer, muse, wilt thou not haply say,
Truth needs no colour with his colour fix'd;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix'd?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb ?
Excuse no silence so, for 't lies in thee

To make her much outlive a golden tomb,
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.

Then do thy office, muse, I teach thee how
To make her seem long hence, as she shows now.

CONSTANT AFFECTION.

To me, fair love, 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 forest shook three summers' pride;
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,
In process of the seasons, have I seen;

Three April purfumes 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 place perceiv'd;
So your sweet hue, which, methinks, still does 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..

Let not my love be call'd idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idle 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 confin'd,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
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 liv'd alone:
Which three, till now, have never sate in one..

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 antick pen would have express'd
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, who now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

AMAZEMENT.

My love is strengthen'd, tho' more weak in seeming; love not less, tho' less the show appear:

That love is merchandiz'd, 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 in my lays;
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
And stops his 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 burdens 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.

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.
Oh! blame me not, if I no more can write !
Look in your glass, and there appears a face,
That overgrows 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..

A LOVER'S EXCUSE FOR HIS LONG ABSENCE.

Oh! never say that I was false of heart,
Tho' absence seem'd my flame to qualify;
As easy might I from myself depart,

As from my soul which in my breast doth lie.
That is my home of love; if I have rang'd,
Like him that travels, I return again

Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd;
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, tho' in my nature reign'd
All frailties, that besiege all kind of blood,
That it could so prepost'rously 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.
Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motly to thy 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 truth
Askance and strangely: but by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worst assays prov'd 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 confin'd.

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
Even to thy pure and most loving breast.

A COMPLAINT.

Oh! for my sake do you with fortune chide
The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,

Than publick means which publick manners breeds.
Thence comes it, that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdu'd
To 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 drink
Potions of eysel 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness, that I will bitter think,

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