Сонеты Шекспира

|Have added feathers to the learned's wing |

|And given grace a double majesty. |

|Yet be most proud of that which I compile, |

|Whose influence is thine and born of thee: |

|In others' works thou dost but mend the style, |

|And arts with thy sweet graces graced be; |

| But thou art all my art and dost advance |

| As high as learning my rude ignorance. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 79

|LXXIX. |

|Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, |

|My verse alone had all thy gentle grace, |

|But now my gracious numbers are decay'd |

|And my sick Muse doth give another place. |

|I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument |

|Deserves the travail of a worthier pen, |

|Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent |

|He robs thee of and pays it thee again. |

|He lends thee virtue and he stole that word |

|From thy behavior; beauty doth he give |

|And found it in thy cheek; he can afford |

|No praise to thee but what in thee doth live. |

| Then thank him not for that which he doth say, |

| Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 80

|LXXX. |

|O, how I faint when I of you do write, |

|Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, |

|And in the praise thereof spends all his might, |

|To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame! |

|But since your worth, wide as the ocean is, |

|The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, |

|My saucy bark inferior far to his |

|On your broad main doth wilfully appear. |

|Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, |

|Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride; |

|Or being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat, |

|He of tall building and of goodly pride: |

| Then if he thrive and I be cast away, |

| The worst was this; my love was my decay. |

|Sonnets of William Shakespeare |

|Sonnet 81 |

|LXXXI. |

|Or I shall live your epitaph to make, |

|Or you survive when I in earth am rotten; |

|From hence your memory death cannot take, |

|Although in me each part will be forgotten. |

|Your name from hence immortal life shall have, |

|Though I, once gone, to all the world must die: |

|The earth can yield me but a common grave, |

|When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie. |

|Your monument shall be my gentle verse, |

|Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read, |

|And tongues to be your being shall rehearse |

|When all the breathers of this world are dead; |

| You still shall live--such virtue hath my pen-- |

| Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men. |

| |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 82

|LXXXII. |

|I grant thou wert not married to my Muse |

|And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook |

|The dedicated words which writers use |

|Of their fair subject, blessing every book |

|Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue, |

|Finding thy worth a limit past my praise, |

|And therefore art enforced to seek anew |

|Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days |

|And do so, love; yet when they have devised |

|What strained touches rhetoric can lend, |

|Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized |

|In true plain words by thy true-telling friend; |

| And their gross painting might be better used |

| Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 83

|LXXXIII. |

|I never saw that you did painting need |

|And therefore to your fair no painting set; |

|I found, or thought I found, you did exceed |

|The barren tender of a poet's debt; |

|And therefore have I slept in your report, |

|That you yourself being extant well might show |

|How far a modern quill doth come too short, |

|Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. |

|This silence for my sin you did impute, |

|Which shall be most my glory, being dumb; |

|For I impair not beauty being mute, |

|When others would give life and bring a tomb. |

| There lives more life in one of your fair eyes |

| Than both your poets can in praise devise. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 84

|LXXXIV. |

|Who is it that says most? which can say more |

|Than this rich praise, that you alone are you? |

|In whose confine immured is the store |

|Which should example where your equal grew. |

|Lean penury within that pen doth dwell |

|That to his subject lends not some small glory; |

|But he that writes of you, if he can tell |

|That you are you, so dignifies his story, |

|Let him but copy what in you is writ, |

|Not making worse what nature made so clear, |

|And such a counterpart shall fame his wit, |

|Making his style admired every where. |

| You to your beauteous blessings add a curse, |

| Being fond on praise, which makes your praises |

|worse. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 85

|LXXXV. |

|My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, |

|While comments of your praise, richly compiled, |

|Reserve their character with golden quill |

|And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. |

|I think good thoughts whilst other write good |

|words, |

|And like unletter'd clerk still cry 'Amen' |

|To every hymn that able spirit affords |

|In polish'd form of well-refined pen. |

|Hearing you praised, I say ''Tis so, 'tis true,' |

|And to the most of praise add something more; |

|But that is in my thought, whose love to you, |

|Though words come hindmost, holds his rank |

|before. |

| Then others for the breath of words respect, |

| Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 86

|LXXXVI. |

|Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, |

|Bound for the prize of all too precious you, |

|That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, |

|Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? |

|Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write |

|Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? |

|No, neither he, nor his compeers by night |

|Giving him aid, my verse astonished. |

|He, nor that affable familiar ghost |

|Which nightly gulls him with intelligence |

|As victors of my silence cannot boast; |

|I was not sick of any fear from thence: |

| But when your countenance fill'd up his line, |

| Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 87

|LXXXVII. |

|Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, |

|And like enough thou know'st thy estimate: |

|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 gavest, thy own worth then not |

|knowing, |

|Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking; |

|So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, |

|Comes home again, on better judgment making. |

| Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, |

| In sleep a king, but waking no such matter. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 88

|LXXXVIII. |

|When thou shalt be disposed to set me light, |

|And place my merit in the eye of scorn, |

|Upon thy side against myself I'll fight, |

|And prove thee virtuous, though thou art |

|forsworn. |

|With mine own weakness being best acquainted, |

|Upon thy part I can set down a story |

|Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted, |

|That thou in losing me shalt win much glory: |

|And I by this will be a gainer too; |

|For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, |

|The injuries that to myself I do, |

|Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me. |

| Such is my love, to thee I so belong, |

| That for thy right myself will bear all wrong. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 89

|LXXXIX. |

|Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, |

|And I will comment upon that offence; |

|Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt, |

|Against thy reasons making no defence. |

|Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, |

|To set a form upon desired change, |

|As I'll myself disgrace: knowing thy will, |

|I will acquaintance strangle and look strange, |

|Be absent from thy walks, and in my tongue |

|Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell, |

|Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong |

|And haply of our old acquaintance tell. |

| For thee against myself I'll vow debate, |

| For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 90

|XC. |

|Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now; |

|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 'scoped this |

|sorrow, |

|Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe; |

|Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, |

|To linger out a purposed 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, |

| Compared with loss of thee will not seem so. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 91

|XCI. |

|Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, |

|Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' |

|force, |

|Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill, |

|Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their |

|horse; |

|And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure, |

|Wherein it finds a joy above the rest: |

|But these particulars are not my measure; |

|All these I better in one general best. |

|Thy love is better than high birth to me, |

|Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost, |

|Of more delight than hawks or horses be; |

|And having thee, of all men's pride I boast: |

| Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take |

| All this away and me most wretched make. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 92

|XCII. |

|But do thy worst to steal thyself away, |

|For term of life thou art assured mine, |

|And life no longer than thy love will stay, |

|For it depends upon that love of thine. |

|Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, |

|When in the least of them my life hath end. |

|I see a better state to me belongs |

|Than that which on thy humour doth depend; |

|Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind, |

|Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie. |

|O, what a happy title do I find, |

|Happy to have thy love, happy to die! |

| But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot? |

| Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 93

|XCIII. |

|So shall I live, supposing thou art true, |

|Like a deceived husband; so love's face |

|May still seem love to me, though alter'd new; |

|Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place: |

|For there can live no hatred in thine eye, |

|Therefore in that I cannot know thy change. |

|In many's looks the false heart's history |

|Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange,|

| |

|But heaven in thy creation did decree |

|That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell; |

|Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be,|

| |

|Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness |

|tell. |

| How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow, |

| if thy sweet virtue answer not thy show! |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 94

|XCIV. |

|They that have power to hurt and will do none, |

|That do not do the thing they most do show, |

|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. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 95

|XCV. |

|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! |

|O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose! |

|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. |

|O, what a mansion have those vices got |

|Which for their habitation chose 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-used doth lose his edge. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 96

|XCVI. |

|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 makest faults graces that to thee resort. |

|As on the finger of a throned queen |

|The basest jewel will be well esteem'd, |

|So are those errors that in thee are seen |

|To truths translated and for true things deem'd. |

|How many lambs might the stem wolf betray, |

|If like a lamb he could his looks translate! |

|How many gazers mightst thou lead away, |

|If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy |

|state! |

| But do not so; I love thee in such sort |

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

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 97

|XCVII. |

|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 widow'd wombs after their lords' 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. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 98

|XCVIII. |

|From you have I been absent in the spring, |

|When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim |

|Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, |

|That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd 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 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 seem'd it winter still, and, you away, |

| As with your shadow I with these did play. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 99

|XCIX. |

|The forward violet thus did I chide: |

|Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy 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. |

|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, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both |

|And to his robbery had 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. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 100

|C. |

|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, |

|Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light? |

|Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem |

|In gentle numbers time so idly spent; |

|Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem |

|And gives thy pen both skill and argument. |

|Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey, |

|If Time have 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. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 101

|CI. |

|O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends |

|For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed? |

|Both truth and beauty on my love depends; |

|So dost thou too, and therein dignified. |

|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 not silence so; for't lies in thee |

|To make him much outlive a gilded tomb, |

|And to be praised of ages yet to be. |

| Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how |

| To make him seem long hence as he shows now. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 102

|CII. |

|My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in |

|seeming; |

|I love not less, though less the show appear: |

|That love is merchandized 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 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. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 103

|CIII. |

|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! |

|O, blame me not, if I no more can write! |

|Look in your glass, and there appears a face |

|That over-goes 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. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 104

|CIV. |

|To me, fair friend, you never can be old, |

|For as you were when first your eye I eyed, |

|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 perceived; |

|So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth |

|stand, |

|Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived: |

| For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred; |

| Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 105

|CV. |

|Let not my love be call'd idolatry, |

|Nor my beloved as an idol 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 confined, |

|One thing expressing, leaves out difference. |

|'Fair, kind and true' is all my argument, |

|'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 lived alone,|

| |

| Which three till now never kept seat in one. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 106

|CVI. |

|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 antique 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 skill enough your worth to sing: |

| For we, which now behold these present days, |

| Had eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.|

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 107

|CVII. |

|Not 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, |

|Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. |

|The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured |

|And the sad augurs mock their own presage; |

|Incertainties now crown themselves assured |

|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 |

|rhyme, |

|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. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 108

|CVIII. |

|What's in the brain that ink may character |

|Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit? |

|What's new to speak, what new to register, |

|That may express my love or thy dear merit? |

|Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,|

| |

|I must, each day say o'er the very same, |

|Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, |

|Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name. |

|So that eternal love in love's fresh case |

|Weighs not the dust and injury of age, |

|Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, |

|But makes antiquity for aye his page, |

| Finding the first conceit of love there bred |

| Where time and outward form would show it dead.|

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 109

|CIX. |

|O, never say that I was false of heart, |

|Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify. |

|As easy might I from myself depart |

|As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie: |

|That is my home of love: if I have ranged, |

|Like him that travels I return again, |

|Just to the time, not with the time exchanged, |

|So that myself bring water for my stain. |

|Never believe, though in my nature reign'd |

|All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, |

|That it could so preposterously 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. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 110

|CX. |

|Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there |

|And made myself a motley to the view, |

|Gored 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 worse essays proved 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 confined. |

| Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, |

| Even to thy pure and most most loving breast. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 111

|CXI. |

|O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, |

|The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, |

|That did not better for my life provide |

|Than public means which public manners breeds. |

|Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, |

|And almost thence my nature is subdued |

|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 eisel 'gainst my strong infection |

|No bitterness that I will bitter think, |

|Nor double penance, to correct correction. |

| Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye |

| Even that your pity is enough to cure me. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 112

|CXII. |

|Your love and pity doth the impression fill |

|Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow; |

|For what care I who calls me well or ill, |

|So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow? |

|You are my all the world, and I must strive |

|To know my shames and praises from your tongue: |

|None else to me, nor I to none alive, |

|That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong. |

|In so profound abysm I throw all care |

|Of others' voices, that my adder's sense |

|To critic and to flatterer stopped are. |

|Mark how with my neglect I do dispense: |

| You are so strongly in my purpose bred |

| That all the world besides methinks are dead. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 113

|CXIII. |

|Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind; |

|And that which governs me to go about |

|Doth part his function and is partly blind, |

|Seems seeing, but effectually is out; |

|For it no form delivers to the heart |

|Of bird of flower, or shape, which it doth latch:|

| |

|Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, |

|Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch: |

|For if it see the rudest or gentlest sight, |

|The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature, |

|The mountain or the sea, the day or night, |

|The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature:|

| |

| Incapable of more, replete with you, |

| My most true mind thus makes mine eye untrue. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 114

|CXIV. |

|Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, |

|Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery? |

|Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true, |

|And that your love taught it this alchemy, |

|To make of monsters and things indigest |

|Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, |

|Creating every bad a perfect best, |

|As fast as objects to his beams assemble? |

|O,'tis the first; 'tis flattery in my seeing, |

|And my great mind most kingly drinks it up: |

|Mine eye well knows what with his gust is |

|'greeing, |

|And to his palate doth prepare the cup: |

| If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin |

| That mine eye loves it and doth first begin. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 115

|CXV. |

|Those lines that I before have writ do lie, |

|Even those that said I could not love you dearer:|

| |

|Yet then my judgment knew no reason why |

|My most full flame should afterwards burn |

|clearer. |

|But reckoning time, whose million'd accidents |

|Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings,|

| |

|Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, |

|Divert strong minds to the course of altering |

|things; |

|Alas, why, fearing of time's tyranny, |

|Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,' |

|When I was certain o'er incertainty, |

|Crowning the present, doubting of the rest? |

| Love is a babe; then might I not say so, |

| To give full growth to that which still doth |

|grow? |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 116

|CXVI. |

|Let 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 wandering 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. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 117

|CXVII. |

|Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all |

|Wherein I should your great deserts repay, |

|Forgot upon your dearest love to call, |

|Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day; |

|That I have frequent been with unknown minds |

|And given to time your own dear-purchased right |

|That I have hoisted sail to all the winds |

|Which should transport me farthest from your |

|sight. |

|Book both my wilfulness and errors down |

|And on just proof surmise accumulate; |

|Bring me within the level of your frown, |

|But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate; |

| Since my appeal says I did strive to prove |

| The constancy and virtue of your love. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 118

|CXVIII. |

|Like as, to make our appetites more keen, |

|With eager compounds we our palate urge, |

|As, to prevent our maladies unseen, |

|We sicken to shun sickness when we purge, |

|Even so, being tuff of your ne'er-cloying |

|sweetness, |

|To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding |

|And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness |

|To be diseased ere that there was true needing. |

|Thus policy in love, to anticipate |

|The ills that were not, grew to faults assured |

|And brought to medicine a healthful state |

|Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured: |

| But thence I learn, and find the lesson true, |

| Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 119

|CXIX. |

|What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, |

|Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within, |

|Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears, |

|Still losing when I saw myself to win! |

|What wretched errors hath my heart committed, |

|Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never! |

|How have mine eyes out of their spheres been |

|fitted |

|In the distraction of this madding fever! |

|O benefit of ill! now I find true |

|That better is by evil still made better; |

|And ruin'd love, when it is built anew, |

|Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far |

|greater. |

| So I return rebuked to my content |

| And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 120

|CXX. |

|That you were once unkind befriends me now, |

|And for that sorrow which I then did feel |

|Needs must I under my transgression bow, |

|Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel. |

|For if you were by my unkindness shaken |

|As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time, |

|And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken |

|To weigh how once I suffered in your crime. |

|O, that our night of woe might have remember'd |

|My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits, |

|And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd |

|The humble slave which wounded bosoms fits! |

| But that your trespass now becomes a fee; |

| Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 121

|CXXI. |

|'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd, |

|When not to be receives reproach of being, |

|And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd |

|Not by our feeling but by others' seeing: |

|For why should others false adulterate eyes |

|Give salutation to my sportive blood? |

|Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, |

|Which in their wills count bad what I think good?|

| |

|No, I am that I am, and they that level |

|At my abuses reckon up their own: |

|I may be straight, though they themselves be |

|bevel; |

|By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be |

|shown; |

| Unless this general evil they maintain, |

| All men are bad, and in their badness reign. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 122

|CXXII. |

|Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain |

|Full character'd with lasting memory, |

|Which shall above that idle rank remain |

|Beyond all date, even to eternity; |

|Or at the least, so long as brain and heart |

|Have faculty by nature to subsist; |

|Till each to razed oblivion yield his part |

|Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd. |

|That poor retention could not so much hold, |

|Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score; |

|Therefore to give them from me was I bold, |

|To trust those tables that receive thee more: |

| To keep an adjunct to remember thee |

| Were to import forgetfulness in me. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 123

|CXXIII. |

|No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change: |

|Thy pyramids built up with newer might |

|To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; |

|They are but dressings of a former sight. |

|Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire |

|What thou dost foist upon us that is old, |

|And rather make them born to our desire |

|Than think that we before have heard them told. |

|Thy registers and thee I both defy, |

|Not wondering at the present nor the past, |

|For thy records and what we see doth lie, |

|Made more or less by thy continual haste. |

| This I do vow and this shall ever be; |

| I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 124

|CXXIV. |

|If my dear love were but the child of state, |

|It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd' |

|As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate, |

|Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers |

|gather'd. |

|No, it was builded far from accident; |

|It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls |

|Under the blow of thralled discontent, |

|Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls: |

|It fears not policy, that heretic, |

|Which works on leases of short-number'd hours, |

|But all alone stands hugely politic, |

|That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with |

|showers. |

| To this I witness call the fools of time, |

| Which die for goodness, who have lived for |

|crime. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 125

|CXXV. |

|Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy, |

|With my extern the outward honouring, |

|Or laid great bases for eternity, |

|Which prove more short than waste or ruining? |

|Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour |

|Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent, |

|For compound sweet forgoing simple savour, |

|Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent? |

|No, let me be obsequious in thy heart, |

|And take thou my oblation, poor but free, |

|Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art, |

|But mutual render, only me for thee. |

| Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul |

| When most impeach'd stands least in thy |

|control. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 126

|CXXVI. |

|O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power |

|Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour; |

|Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st |

|Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow'st; |

|If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, |

|As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee |

|back, |

|She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill |

|May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill. |

|Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure! |

|She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:|

| |

| Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be, |

| And her quietus is to render thee. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 127

|CXXVII. |

|In the old age black was not counted fair, |

|Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name; |

|But now is black beauty's successive heir, |

|And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame: |

|For since each hand hath put on nature's power, |

|Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face, |

|Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower, |

|But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace. |

|Therefore my mistress' brows are raven black, |

|Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem |

|At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack, |

|Slandering creation with a false esteem: |

| Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe, |

| That every tongue says beauty should look so. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 128

|CXXVIII. |

|How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st, |

|Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds |

|With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st |

|The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, |

|Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap |

|To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, |

|Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest |

|reap, |

|At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand! |

|To be so tickled, they would change their state |

|And situation with those dancing chips, |

|O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, |

|Making dead wood more blest than living lips. |

| Since saucy jacks so happy are in this, |

| Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 129

|CXXIX. |

|The expense of spirit in a waste of shame |

|Is lust in action; and till action, lust |

|Is perjured, murderous, 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 swallow'd 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 proved, a very woe; |

|Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. |

| All this the world well knows; yet none knows |

|well |

| To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.|

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 130

|CXXX. |

|My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; |

|Coral is far more red than her lips' red; |

|If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; |

|If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. |

|I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, |

|But no such roses see I in her cheeks; |

|And in some perfumes is there more delight |

|Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. |

|I love to hear her speak, yet well I know |

|That music hath a far more pleasing sound; |

|I grant I never saw a goddess go; |

|My mistress, when she walks, treads on the |

|ground: |

| And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare |

| As any she belied with false compare. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 131

|CXXXI. |

|Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, |

|As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel; |

|For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart |

|Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel. |

|Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold |

|Thy face hath not the power to make love groan: |

|To say they err I dare not be so bold, |

|Although I swear it to myself alone. |

|And, to be sure that is not false I swear, |

|A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face, |

|One on another's neck, do witness bear |

|Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place. |

| In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds, |

| And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 132

|CXXXII. |

|Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, |

|Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain, |

|Have put on black and loving mourners be, |

|Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. |

|And truly not the morning sun of heaven |

|Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, |

|Nor that full star that ushers in the even |

|Doth half that glory to the sober west, |

|As those two mourning eyes become thy face: |

|O, let it then as well beseem thy heart |

|To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace, |

|And suit thy pity like in every part. |

| Then will I swear beauty herself is black |

| And all they foul that thy complexion lack. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 133

|CXXXIII. |

|Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan |

|For that deep wound it gives my friend and me! |

|Is't not enough to torture me alone, |

|But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be? |

|Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken, |

|And my next self thou harder hast engross'd: |

|Of him, myself, and thee, I am forsaken; |

|A torment thrice threefold thus to be cross'd. |

|Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward, |

|But then my friend's heart let my poor heart |

|bail; |

|Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard; |

|Thou canst not then use rigor in my gaol: |

| And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee, |

| Perforce am thine, and all that is in me. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 134

|CXXXIV. |

|So, now I have confess'd that he is thine, |

|And I myself am mortgaged to thy will, |

|Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine |

|Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still: |

|But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, |

|For thou art covetous and he is kind; |

|He learn'd but surety-like to write for me |

|Under that bond that him as fast doth bind. |

|The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, |

|Thou usurer, that put'st forth all to use, |

|And sue a friend came debtor for my sake; |

|So him I lose through my unkind abuse. |

| Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me: |

| He pays the whole, and yet am I not free. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 135

|CXXXV. |

|Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,' |

|And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in overplus; |

|More than enough am I that vex thee still, |

|To thy sweet will making addition thus. |

|Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, |

|Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? |

|Shall will in others seem right gracious, |

|And in my will no fair acceptance shine? |

|The sea all water, yet receives rain still |

|And in abundance addeth to his store; |

|So thou, being rich in 'Will,' add to thy 'Will' |

|One will of mine, to make thy large 'Will' more. |

| Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill; |

| Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.' |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 136

|CXXXVI. |

|If thy soul cheque thee that I come so near, |

|Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will,' |

|And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there; |

|Thus far for love my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. |

|'Will' will fulfil the treasure of thy love, |

|Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. |

|In things of great receipt with ease we prove |

|Among a number one is reckon'd none: |

|Then in the number let me pass untold, |

|Though in thy stores' account I one must be; |

|For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold |

|That nothing me, a something sweet to thee: |

| Make but my name thy love, and love that still,|

| |

| And then thou lovest me, for my name is 'Will.'|

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 137

|CXXXVII. |

|Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine |

|eyes, |

|That they behold, and see not what they see? |

|They know what beauty is, see where it lies, |

|Yet what the best is take the worst to be. |

|If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks |

|Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride, |

|Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks, |

|Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied? |

|Why should my heart think that a several plot |

|Which my heart knows the wide world's common |

|place? |

|Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not, |

|To put fair truth upon so foul a face? |

| In things right true my heart and eyes have |

|erred, |

| And to this false plague are they now |

|transferr'd. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 138

|CXXXVIII. |

|When my love swears that she is made of truth |

|I do believe her, though I know she lies, |

|That she might think me some untutor'd youth, |

|Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. |

|Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, |

|Although she knows my days are past the best, |

|Simply I credit her false speaking tongue: |

|On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd. |

|But wherefore says she not she is unjust? |

|And wherefore say not I that I am old? |

|O, love's best habit is in seeming trust, |

|And age in love loves not to have years told: |

| Therefore I lie with her and she with me, |

| And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 139

|CXXXIX. |

|O, call not me to justify the wrong |

|That thy unkindness lays upon my heart; |

|Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue; |

|Use power with power and slay me not by art. |

|Tell me thou lovest elsewhere, but in my sight, |

|Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside: |

|What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy |

|might |

|Is more than my o'er-press'd defense can bide? |

|Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows |

|Her pretty looks have been mine enemies, |

|And therefore from my face she turns my foes, |

|That they elsewhere might dart their injuries: |

| Yet do not so; but since I am near slain, |

| Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 140

|CXL. |

|Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press |

|My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain; |

|Lest sorrow lend me words and words express |

|The manner of my pity-wanting pain. |

|If I might teach thee wit, better it were, |

|Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so; |

|As testy sick men, when their deaths be near, |

|No news but health from their physicians know; |

|For if I should despair, I should grow mad, |

|And in my madness might speak ill of thee: |

|Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, |

|Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be, |

| That I may not be so, nor thou belied, |

| Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud |

|heart go wide. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 141

|CXLI. |

|In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, |

|For they in thee a thousand errors note; |

|But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise, |

|Who in despite of view is pleased to dote; |

|Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune |

|delighted, |

|Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone, |

|Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited |

|To any sensual feast with thee alone: |

|But my five wits nor my five senses can |

|Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee, |

|Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man, |

|Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be: |

| Only my plague thus far I count my gain, |

| That she that makes me sin awards me pain. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 142

|CXLII. |

|Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate, |

|Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving: |

|O, but with mine compare thou thine own state, |

|And thou shalt find it merits not reproving; |

|Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine, |

|That have profaned their scarlet ornaments |

|And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine, |

|Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents. |

|Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovest those |

|Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee: |

|Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows |

|Thy pity may deserve to pitied be. |

| If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, |

| By self-example mayst thou be denied! |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 143

|CXLIII. |

|Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch |

|One of her feather'd creatures broke away, |

|Sets down her babe and makes an swift dispatch |

|In pursuit of the thing she would have stay, |

|Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase, |

|Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent |

|To follow that which flies before her face, |

|Not prizing her poor infant's discontent; |

|So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,|

| |

|Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind; |

|But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me, |

|And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind: |

| So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'|

| |

| If thou turn back, and my loud crying still. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 144

|CXLIV. |

|Two loves I have of comfort and despair, |

|Which like two spirits do suggest me still: |

|The better angel is a man right fair, |

|The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill. |

|To win me soon to hell, my female evil |

|Tempteth my better angel from my side, |

|And would corrupt my saint to be a devil, |

|Wooing his purity with her foul pride. |

|And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend |

|Suspect I may, but not directly tell; |

|But being both from me, both to each friend, |

|I guess one angel in another's hell: |

| Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,|

| |

| Till my bad angel fire my good one out. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 145

|CXLV. |

|Those lips that Love's own hand did make |

|Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate' |

|To me that languish'd for her sake; |

|But when she saw my woeful state, |

|Straight in her heart did mercy come, |

|Chiding that tongue that ever sweet |

|Was used in giving gentle doom, |

|And taught it thus anew to greet: |

|'I hate' she alter'd with an end, |

|That follow'd it as gentle day |

|Doth follow night, who like a fiend |

|From heaven to hell is flown away; |

| 'I hate' from hate away she threw, |

| And saved my life, saying 'not you.' |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 146

|CXLVI. |

|Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, |

|[ ] these rebel powers that thee array; |

|Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, |

|Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? |

|Why so large cost, having so short a lease, |

|Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? |

|Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, |

|Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end? |

|Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss, |

|And let that pine to aggravate thy store; |

|Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross; |

|Within be fed, without be rich no more: |

| So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,|

| |

| And Death once dead, there's no more dying |

|then. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 147

|CXLVII. |

|My love is as a fever, longing still |

|For that which longer nurseth the disease, |

|Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, |

|The uncertain sickly appetite to please. |

|My reason, the physician to my love, |

|Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, |

|Hath left me, and I desperate now approve |

|Desire is death, which physic did except. |

|Past cure I am, now reason is past care, |

|And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; |

|My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, |

|At random from the truth vainly express'd; |

| For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee |

|bright, |

| Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 148

|CXLVIII. |

|O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head, |

|Which have no correspondence with true sight! |

|Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, |

|That censures falsely what they see aright? |

|If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, |

|What means the world to say it is not so? |

|If it be not, then love doth well denote |

|Love's eye is not so true as all men's 'No.' |

|How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true, |

|That is so vex'd with watching and with tears? |

|No marvel then, though I mistake my view; |

|The sun itself sees not till heaven clears. |

| O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me |

|blind, |

| Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should |

|find. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 149

|CXLIX. |

|Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not, |

|When I against myself with thee partake? |

|Do I not think on thee, when I forgot |

|Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake? |

|Who hateth thee that I do call my friend? |

|On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon? |

|Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend |

|Revenge upon myself with present moan? |

|What merit do I in myself respect, |

|That is so proud thy service to despise, |

|When all my best doth worship thy defect, |

|Commanded by the motion of thine eyes? |

| But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind; |

| Those that can see thou lovest, and I am blind.|

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 150

|CL. |

|O, from what power hast thou this powerful might |

|With insufficiency my heart to sway? |

|To make me give the lie to my true sight, |

|And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?|

| |

|Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, |

|That in the very refuse of thy deeds |

|There is such strength and warrantize of skill |

|That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds? |

|Who taught thee how to make me love thee more |

|The more I hear and see just cause of hate? |

|O, though I love what others do abhor, |

|With others thou shouldst not abhor my state: |

| If thy unworthiness raised love in me, |

| More worthy I to be beloved of thee. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 151

|CLI. |

|Love is too young to know what conscience is; |

|Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? |

|Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, |

|Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove: |

|For, thou betraying me, I do betray |

|My nobler part to my gross body's treason; |

|My soul doth tell my body that he may |

|Triumph in love; flesh stays no father reason; |

|But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee |

|As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride, |

|He is contented thy poor drudge to be, |

|To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side. |

| No want of conscience hold it that I call |

| Her 'love' for whose dear love I rise and fall.|

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 152

|CLII. |

|In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn, |

|But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing,|

| |

|In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn, |

|In vowing new hate after new love bearing. |

|But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee, |

|When I break twenty? I am perjured most; |

|For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee |

|And all my honest faith in thee is lost, |

|For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,|

| |

|Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy, |

|And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness, |

|Or made them swear against the thing they see; |

| For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured I, |

| To swear against the truth so foul a lie! |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 153

|CLIII. |

|Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep: |

|A maid of Dian's this advantage found, |

|And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep |

|In a cold valley-fountain of that ground; |

|Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love |

|A dateless lively heat, still to endure, |

|And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove |

|Against strange maladies a sovereign cure. |

|But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired, |

|The boy for trial needs would touch my breast; |

|I, sick withal, the help of bath desired, |

|And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest, |

| But found no cure: the bath for my help lies |

| Where Cupid got new fire--my mistress' eyes. |

Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Sonnet 154

|CLIV. |

|The little Love-god lying once asleep |

|Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, |

|Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep|

| |

|Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand |

|The fairest votary took up that fire |

|Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd; |

|And so the general of hot desire |

|Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd. |

|This brand she quenched in a cool well by, |

|Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual, |

|Growing a bath and healthful remedy |

|For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall, |

| Came there for cure, and this by that I prove, |

| Love's fire heats water, water cools not love. |

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