SONNETS. Anon permit the basest clouds to ride Yet him for this my love no whit disdain- Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth. 243 Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee, WHAT is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you Since every one hath, every one, one shade, On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set, WHY didst thou promise such a beauteous The one doth shadow of your beauty show, day, And make me travel forth without cloak, To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief— The other as your bounty doth appear; О, ноw much more doth beauty beauteous seem, By that sweet ornament which truth doth The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds. When Summer's breath their masked buds THOSE pretty wrongs that liberty commits, And chide thy Beauty and thy straying Youth, discloses; But, for their virtue only is their show; And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, Nor marble, nor the gilded monuments tents Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, The living record of your memory. FAREWELL! thou art too dear for my possess ing, And like enough thou know'st thy estimate; Shall you pace forth: your praise shall still And for that riches where is my deserving? 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. THAT thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. If some suspect of ill masked not thy show, Then, thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe. The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, Or me, to whom gav'st it, else mistaking; Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, In sleep a king; but waking, no such matter. SOME say thy fault is youth, some wantonness; Some say thy grace is youth, and gentle sport; Both grace and faults are loved of more and less: Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort. How many lambs might the stern wolf betray, But do not so; I love thee in such sort As thou being mine, mine is thy good report. 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 bareness every where! And yet this time removed was Summer's time; The teeming Autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, Like widowed wombs after their lords' de cease. SONNETS. Yet this abundant issue seemed to me FROM you nave I been absent in the Spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell 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: 245 And beauty making beautiful old rhyme, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. Nor mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love control, Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy While he insults o'er dull and speechless sweet that smells, 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. More flowers I noted, yet I none could see, WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, tribes: And thou in this shalt find thy monument, When tyrants' crests, and tombs of brass are spent. LET me not to the marriage of true minds 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, O! NEVER say that I was false of heart, As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie. That is my home of love; if I have ranged, SONNETS. SHAKESPEARE. When Cupid having me, his slave, descried Look here I say."—I looked, and Stella spied, My heart then quaked; then dazzled were mine eyes; One hand forgot to rule, the other to fight; My foe came on and beat the air for me, see. O HAPPY Thames, that didst my Stella bear! The boat for joy could not to dance forbear; COME Sleep, O Sleep! the certain knot of Ravished, staid not till in her golden hair peace, The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe; They did themselves, O sweetest prison! twine; And fain those Eol's youth there would their stay Have made, but forced by Nature still to fly, With shield of proof, shield me from out the First did with puffing kiss those locks display. prease She so dishevelled, blushed :—from window I, Of those fierce darts despair doth at me With sight thereof, cried out, O fair disgrace! throw. O make in me those civil wars to cease; A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light, IN martial sports I had my cunning tried, Let Honor's self to thee grant highest place. WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies How silently, and with how wan a face! That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries? I KNOW that all beneath the Moon decays; And what by mortals in this world is brought, In time's great periods shall return to nought; That fairest states have fatal nights and days. I know that all the Muses' heavenly lays, With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, As idle sounds, of few or none are sought; That there is nothing lighter than vain praise. I know frail beauty 's like the purple flower To which one morn oft birth and death affords; That love a jarring is of mind's accords, Where sense and will bring under reason's power: Know what I list, this all cannot me move, But that, alas! I both must write and love. WILLIAM DRUMMOND. SONNET. IF it be true that any beauteous thing Repose upon the eyes which it resembleth, MICHAEL ANGELO. (Italian.) Translation of J. E. Taylor. PHILLIDA AND CORYDON. In the merrie moneth of Maye, Where anon by a wood side, Where as May was in his pride, I espied all alone Phillida and Corydon. Much adoe there was, God wot; He wold love, and she wold not. She sayd never man was trewe; He sayes none was false to you. 247 He sayde hee had lovde her longe Tyll they doe for good and all. When she made the shepperde call All the heavens to wytnes truthe, Never loved a truer youthe. Then with many a prettie othe, Love, that had bene long deluded, Was with kisses sweete concluded; And Phillida with garlands gaye Was made the ladye of the Maye. NICHOLAS BRETON. LOVE IS A SICKNESS. LOVE is a sickness full of woes, A plant that most with cutting grows, Why so? More we enjoy it, more it dies; If not enjoyed, it sighing cries Heigh-ho! |