Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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Sonnets

1

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory;

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed‘st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament

And only herald to the gaudy spring

Within thine own bud buriest thy content,

And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.

Pity the world, or else this glutton be:

To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

2

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,

Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,

Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held.

Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use

If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine

Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse’,

Proving his beauty by succession thine.

This were to be new made when thou art old,

And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.

3

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another,

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

For where is she so fair whose uneared womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

Of his self-love to stop posterity?

Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime;

So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,

Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.

But if thou live remembered not to be,

Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

4

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?

Nature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,

And being frank, she lends to those are free.

Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

The bounteous largess given thee to give?

Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?

For having traffic with thyself alone,

Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.

Then how when nature calls thee to be gone:

What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,

Which used, lives th’executor to be.

5

Those hours that with gentle work did frame

The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell

Will play the tyrants to the very same,

And that unfair which fairly doth excel;

For never-resting time leads summer on

To hideous winter, and confounds him there,

Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,

Beauty o’er-snowed, and bareness everywhere.

Then were not summer’s distillation left

A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,

Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,

Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.

But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,

Lose but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

6

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface

In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled.

Make sweet some vial, treasure thou some place

With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-killed.

That use is not forbidden usury

Which happies those that pay the willing loan:

That’s for thyself to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigured thee.

Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,

Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair

To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.

7

Lo, in the orient when the gracious light

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

Serving with looks his sacred majesty,

And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,

Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

Attending on his golden pilgrimage.

But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,

Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,

The eyes, ’‘fore duteous, now converted are

From his low tract, and look another way.

So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon,

Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.

8

Music to hear, why hear‘st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv‘st not gladly,

Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well-tuned sounds

By unions married do offend thine ear,

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,

Resembling sire and child and happy mother,

Who all in one one pleasing note do sing;

Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

Sings this to thee: ‘Thou single wilt prove none.’

9

Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye

That thou consum’st thyself in single life?

Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

The world will wail thee like a makeless wife.

The world will be thy widow, and still weep

That thou no form of thee hast left behind,

When every private widow well may keep

By children’s eyes her husband’s shape in mind.

Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend

Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;

But beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,

And kept unused, the user so destroys it.

No love toward others in that bosom sits

That on himself such murd’rous shame commits.

10

For shame deny that thou bear‘st love to any,

Who for thyself art so unprovident.

Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,

But that thou none lov’st is most evident;

For thou art so possessed with murd‘rous hate

That ’gainst thyself thou stick’st not to conspire,

Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!

Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?

Be as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove.

Make thee another self for love of me,

That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

11

As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow‘st

In one of thine from that which thou departest,

And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow’st

Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth

convertest.

Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;

Without this, folly, age, and cold decay.

If all were minded so, the times should cease,

And threescore year would make the world away.

Let those whom nature hath not made for store,

Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish.

Look whom she best endowed she gave the more,

Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish.

She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby

Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

12

When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime,

And sable curls ensilvered o’er with white;

When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,

And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves

Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:

Then of thy beauty do I question make

That thou among the wastes of time must go,

Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,

And die as fast as they see others grow;

And nothing ’gainst time’s scythe can make defence

Save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence.

13

O that you were yourself! But, love, you are

No longer yours than you yourself here live.

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give.

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination; then you were

Yourself again after your self’s decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold

Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day,

And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?

O, none but unthrifts, dear my love, you know.

You had a father; let your son say so.

14

Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,

And yet methinks I have astronomy;

But not to tell of good or evil luck,

Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality.

Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,

’Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,

Or say with princes if it shall go well

By oft predict that I in heaven find;

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,

And, constant stars, in them I read such art

As truth and beauty shall together thrive

If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert.

Or else of thee this I prognosticate:

Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.

15

When I consider every thing that grows

Holds in perfection but a little moment,

That this huge stage presenteth naught but shows

Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;

When I perceive that men as plants increase

Cheered and checked even by the selfsame sky;

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,

And wear their brave state out of memory:

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay

Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

Where wasteful time debateth with decay

To change your day of youth to sullied night;

And all in war with time for love of you,

As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

16

But wherefore do not you a mightier way

Make war upon this bloody tyrant, time,

And fortify yourself in your decay

With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?

Now stand you on the top of happy hours,

And many maiden gardens yet unset

With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,

Much liker than your painted counterfeit.

So should the lines of life that life repair

Which this time’s pencil or my pupil pen

Neither in inward worth nor outward fair

Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.

To give away yourself keeps yourself still,

And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.

17

Who will believe my verse in time to come

If it were filled with your most high deserts?—

Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb

Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.

If I could write the beauty of your eyes

And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

The age to come would say ‘This poet lies;

Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.’

So should my papers, yellowed with their age,

Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,

And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage

And stretched metre of an antique song.

But were some child of yours alive that time,

You should live twice: in it, and in my rhyme.

18

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 dimmed,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow‘st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

19

Devouring time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,

And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood.

Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet‘st,

And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed time,

To the wide world and all her fading sweets.

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:

O, carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,

Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen.

Him in thy course untainted do allow

For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.

Yet do thy worst, old time; despite thy wrong

My love shall in my verse ever live young.

20

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted

Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;

A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted

With shifting change as is false women’s fashion;

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,

Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created,

Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure,

Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.

21

So is it not with me as with that muse

Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,

Who heaven itself for ornament doth use,

And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,

Making a couplement of proud compare

With sun and moon, with earth, and sea’s rich gems,

With April’s first-born flowers, and all things rare

That heaven’s air in this huge rondure hems.

O let me, true in love, but truly write,

And then believe me my love is as fair

As any mother’s child, though not so bright

As those gold candles fixed in heaven’s air.

Let them say more that like of hearsay well;

I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

22

My glass shall not persuade me I am old

So long as youth and thou are of one date;

But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,

Then look I death my days should expiate.

For all that beauty that doth cover thee

Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,

Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me;

How can I then be elder than thou art?

O therefore, love, be of thyself so wary

As I, not for myself, but for thee will,

Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary

As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain:

Thou gav’st me thine not to give back again.

23

As an unperfect actor on the stage

Who with his fear is put besides his part,

Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage

Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart,

So I, for fear of trust, forget to say

The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,

And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,

O’er-charged with burden of mine own love’s might.

O let my books be then the eloquence

And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,

Who plead for love, and look for recompense

More than that tongue that more,hath more expressed.

O learn to read what silent love hath writ;

To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.

24

Mine eye hath played the painter, and hath steeled

Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart.

My body is the frame wherein ’tis held,

And perspective it is best painter’s art;

For through the painter must you see his skill

To find where your true image pictured lies,

Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,

That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:

Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

Are windows to my breast, wherethrough the sun

Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee.

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art:

They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

25

Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,

Unlooked-for joy in that I honour most.

Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread

But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,

And in themselves their pride lies buried,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famousèd for might,

After a thousand victories once foiled

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.

Then happy I, that love and am beloved

Where I may not remove nor be removed.

26

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,

To thee I send this written embassage

To witness duty, not to show my wit;

Duty so great which wit so poor as mine

May make seem bare in wanting words to show it,

But that I hope some good conceit of thine

In thy soul’s thought, all naked, will bestow it,

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving

Points on me graciously with fair aspect,

And puts apparel on my tattered loving

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect.

Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;

Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

27

Weary with toil I haste me to my bed,

The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;

But then begins a journey in my head

To work my mind when body’s work’s expired;

For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,

Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,

Looking on darkness which the blind do see:

Save that my soul’s imaginary sight

Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,

Which like a jewel hung in ghastly night

Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.

Lo, thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,

For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

28

How can I then return in happy plight,

That am debarred the benefit of rest,

When day’s oppression is not eased by night,

But day by night and night by day oppressed,

And each, though enemies to either’s reign,

Do in consent shake hands to torture me,

The one by toil, the other to complain

How far I toil, still farther off from thee?

I tell the day to please him thou art bright,

And do‘st him grace when clouds do blot the heaven;

So flatter I the swart-complexioned night

When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even.

But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,

And night doth nightly make grief’s strength seem stronger.

29

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I 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 possessed,

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

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings’.

30

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I 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-cancelled woe,

And moan th‘expense of many a vanished sight.

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er

The 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.

31

Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts

Which 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 tear

Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye

As interest of the dead, which now appear

But 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.

32

If thou survive my well-contented day

When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover,

And shalt by fortune once more resurvey

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,

Compare them with the bett‘ring of the time,

And though they be outstripped by every pen,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme

Exceeded 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.’

33

Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter 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 ride

With 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 shine

With all triumphant splendour on my brow;

But out, alack, he was but one hour mine;

The region cloud hath masked him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth:

Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth.

34

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day

And make me travel forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds o‘ertake me in my way,

Hiding thy brav’ry in their rotten smoke?

‘Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak

That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace.

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;

Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss.

Th’offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence’s cross.

Ah, but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,

And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.

35

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud.

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense—

Thy adverse party is thy advocate—

And ’gainst myself a lawful plea commence.

Such civil war is in my love and hate

That I an accessory needs must be

To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

36

Let me confess that we two must be twain

Although our undivided loves are one;

So shall those blots that do with me remain

Without thy help by me be borne alone.

In our two loves there is but one respect,

Though in our lives a separable spite

Which, though it alter not love’s sole effect,

Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.

I may not evermore acknowledge thee

Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,

Nor thou with public kindness honour me

Unless thou take that honour from thy name.

But do not so. I love thee in such sort

As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

37

As a decrepit father takes delight

To see his active child do deeds of youth,

So I, made lame by fortune’s dearest spite,

Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;

For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,

Or any of these all, or all, or more,

Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,

I make my love engrafted to this store.

So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,

Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give

That I in thy abundance am sufficed

And by a part of all thy glory live.

Look what is best, that best I wish in thee;

This wish I have, then ten times happy me.

38

How can my muse want subject to invent

While thou dost breathe, that pour’st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O, give thyself the thanks if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;

For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thyself dost give invention light?

Be thou the tenth muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

If my slight muse do please these curious days,

The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

39

O, how thy worth with manners may I sing

When thou art all the better part of me?

What can mine own praise to mine own self bring,

And what is’t but mine own when I praise thee?

Even for this let us divided live,

And our dear love lose name of single one,

That by this separation I may give

That due to thee which thou deserv’st alone.

O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove

Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave

To entertain the time with thoughts of love,

Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,

And that thou teachest how to make one twain

By praising him here who doth hence remain!

40

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:

What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call—

All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.

Then if for my love thou my love receivest,

I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;

But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest

By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.

I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

And yet love knows it is a greater grief

To bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.

Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.

41

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits

When I am sometime absent from thy heart

Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,

For still temptation follows where thou art.

Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won;

Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;

And when a woman woos, what woman’s son

Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?

Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,

And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth

Who lead thee in their riot even there

Where thou art forced to break a two-fold troth:

Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,

Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.

42

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,

And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;

That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,

A loss in love that touches me more nearly.

Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:

Thou dost love her because thou know‘st I love her,

And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,

Suff’ring my friend for my sake to approve her.

If I lose thee, my loss is my love’s gain,

And losing her, my friend hath found that loss:

Both find each other, and I lose both twain,

And both for my sake lay on me this cross.

But here’s the joy: my friend and I are one.

Sweet flattery! Then she loves but me alone.

43

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,

For all the day they view things unrespected;

But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,

And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.

Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,

How would thy shadow’s form form happy show

To the clear day with thy much clearer light,

When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines sol

How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made

By looking on thee in the living day,

When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade

Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!

All days are nights to see till I see thee,

And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

44

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,

Injurious distance should not stop my way;

For then, despite of space, I would be brought

From limits far remote where thou dost stay.

No matter then although my foot did stand

Upon the farthest earth removed from thee;

For nimble thought can jump both sea and land

As soon as think the place where he would be.

But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought,

To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,

But that, so much of earth and water wrought,

I must attend time’s leisure with my moan,

Receiving naught by elements so slow

But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.

45

The other two, slight air and purging fire,

Are both with thee wherever I abide;

The first my thought, the other my desire,

These present-absent with swift motion slide;

For when these quicker elements are gone

In tender embassy of love to thee,

My life, being made of four, with two alone

Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy,

Until life’s composition be recured

By those swift messengers returned from thee,

Who even but now come back again assured

Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.

This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,

I send them back again and straight grow sad.

46

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war

How to divide the conquest of thy sight.

Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,

My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right.

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,

A closet never pierced with crystal eyes;

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To ’cide this title is empanellèd

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,

And by their verdict is determined

The clear eye’s moiety and the dear heart’s part,

As thus: mine eye’s due is thy outward part,

And my heart’s right thy inward love of heart.

47

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,

And each doth good turns now unto the other.

When that mine eye is famished for a look,

Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,

With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast,

And to the painted banquet bids my heart.

Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest.

And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.

So either by thy picture or my love,

Thyself away art present still with me;

For thou no farther than my thoughts canst move,

And I am still with them, and they with thee;

Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight

Awakes my heart to heart’s and eye’s delight.

48

How careful was I when I took my way

Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,

That to my use it might unused stay

From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust.

But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,

Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,

Thou best of dearest and mine only care

Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.

Thee have I not locked up in any chest

Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art—

Within the gentle closure of my breast,

From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;

And even thence thou wilt be stol’n, I fear,

For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.

49

Against that time—if ever that time come—

When I shall see thee frown on my defects,

Whenas thy love hath cast his utmost sum,

Called to that audit by advised respects;

Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass

And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,

When love converted from the thing it was

Shall reasons find of settled gravity:

Against that time do I ensconce me here

Within the knowledge of mine own desert,