61 Shakespeare - Sonnets

Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing
For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any
From fairest creatures we desire increase
From you have I been absent in the spring
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
How can I then return in happy plight
How can my Muse want subject to invent
How careful was I when I took my way
How heavy do I journey on the way
How like a winter hath my absence been
How oft when thou, my music, music play'st
How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
If my dear love were but the child of state
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought
If there be nothing new, but that which is
If thou survive my well-contented day
If thy soul check thee that I come so near
In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes
In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn
In the old age black was not counted fair
Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
Let me confess that we two must be twain
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Let not my love be call'd idolatry
Let those who are in favour with their stars
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore
Like as, to make our appetites more keen
Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate
Love is too young to know what conscience is
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
My glass shall not persuade me I am old
My love is as a fever, longing still
My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done
No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change
Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
O! call not me to justify the wrong
O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide
O! from what power hast thou this powerful might
O! how I faint when I of you do write
O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
O! how thy worth with manners may I sing
O! lest the world should task you to recite
O! never say that I was false of heart
O! that you were yourself; but, love, you are
Or I shall live your epitaph to make
........
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
  _
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 prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.
........
Let not my love be call'd idolatry
  _
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 confin'd,
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 liv'd alone,
Which three till now never kept seat in one.
........
Let those who are in favour with their stars
  _
LET those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,   _
Unlook'd 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 famoused for fight,   _
After a thousand victories once foil'd,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd   _

Then happy I, that love and am belov'd,
Where I may not remove nor be remov'd.
........
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore
  _
LIKE as the waves make towards the pebbled shore
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,   _
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,   _
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth   _
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow   _

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
........
Like as, to make our appetites more keen
  _
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 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 diseas'd, ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love, to anticipate   _
The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd,
And brought to medicine a healthful state,
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd   _

But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.
........
Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
  _
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 climb'd 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,
Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.
........
Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
  _
LO, as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feather'd creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe, and makes all quick 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.
........
Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
  _
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 unear'd 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, remember'd not to be,
Die single, and thine image dies with thee.
........
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
  _
LORD of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written ambassage,   _
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 tatter'd 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.
........
Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate
  _
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 profan'd 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 lov'st 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!
........
Love is too young to know what conscience is
  _
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 further 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.