61 Shakespeare - Sonnets

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
Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth
Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
So are you to my thoughts as food to life
So is it not with me as with that Muse
So oft have I invok'd thee for my Muse
........
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
  _
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 pierc'd with crystal eyes,   _
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To 'cide this title is impannelled   _
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 thine inward love of heart.
........
Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
  _
MINE eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
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 pictur'd 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, where-through 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.
........
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
  _
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.   _

........
My glass shall not persuade me I am old
  _
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.
........
My love is as a fever, longing still
  _
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.
........
My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming
  _
MY love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming

Ilove not less, though less the show appear:   _
That love is merchandiz'd 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.
........
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
  _
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.
........
My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still
  _
MY tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still
Whilst comments of your praise, richly compil'd,
Deserve their character with golden quill,   _
And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.
I think good thoughts, whilst others 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 prais'd, 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.
........
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
  _
NO longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled   _
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,   _
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O! if, - I say, you look upon this verse,   _
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay   _

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.
........
No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done
  _
NO more be griev'd 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,
Authorising 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 accessary needs must be
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
........
No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change
  _
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.