The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 6

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.

113 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 rud'st 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 maketh mine untrue.

114 Or whether doth my mind being crowned 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 a.s.semble: 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 poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin, That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

115 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 millioned 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 alt'ring 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.

116 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 wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compa.s.s 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.

117 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, acc.u.mulate, Bring me within the level of your frown, But shoot not at me in your wakened hate: Since my appeal says I did strive to prove The constancy and virtue of your love.

118 Like as to make our appet.i.te 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 full 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 t' antic.i.p.ate The ills that were not, grew to faults a.s.sured, 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 feil sick of you.

119 What potions have I drunk of Siren tears Distilled from limbecks foul as h.e.l.l within, Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, Still losing when I saw my self to win!

What wretched errors hath my heart committed, Whilst it hath thought it self 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 ruined 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 ills thrice more than I have spent.

120 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 bra.s.s or hammered steel.

For if you were by my unkindness shaken As I by yours, y'have pa.s.sed a h.e.l.l 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 remembered My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits, And soon to you, as you to me then tendered The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!

But that your trespa.s.s now becomes a fee, Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

121 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed, When not to be, receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed, 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.

122 Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full charactered 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 missed: 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.

123 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 wond'ring 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.

124 If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune's b.a.s.t.a.r.d be unfathered, As subject to time's love or to time's hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.

No it was builded far from accident, It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent, Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls: It fears not policy that heretic, Which works on leases of short-numbered 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.

125 Were't aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which proves 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 mixed with seconds, knows no art, But mutual render, only me for thee.

Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul When most impeached, stands least in thy control.

126 O thou my lovely boy who in thy power, Dost hold Time's fickle gla.s.s his fickle 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 delayed) answered must be, And her quietus is to render thee.

127 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 slandered with a b.a.s.t.a.r.d shame, For since each hand hath put on nature's power, Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face, Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower, But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.

Therefore my mistress' eyes 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.

128 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.

129 Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is l.u.s.t in action, and till action, l.u.s.t Is perjured, murd'rous, b.l.o.o.d.y full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated as a swallowed bait, On purpose laid to make the taker mad.

Mad in pursuit and in possession so, Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme, A bliss in proof and 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 h.e.l.l.

130 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, Coral is far more red, than her lips red, If snow be white, why then her b.r.e.a.s.t.s are dun: If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head: I have seen roses damasked, 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 G.o.ddess 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.

131 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 my self 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.