Sonnets
Sonnet 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.
Sonnet 2
- When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
- And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
- Thy youth’s proud livery, so gaz’d on now,
- Will be a tatter’d weed of small worth held:
- Then being ask’d, 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 deserv’d 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.

- 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 rememb’red not to be,
- Die single, and thine image dies with thee.
Sonnet 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 unus’d beauty must be tomb’d with thee,
- Which used lives th’ executor to be.
Sonnet 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 check’d with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
- Beauty o’ersnow’d and bareness every where:
- 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 distill’d, though they with winter meet,
- Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.
Sonnet 6
- Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface
- In thee thy summer ere thou be distill’d:
- Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
- With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-kill’d.
- 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 refigur’d thee,
- Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
- Leaving thee living in posterity?
- Be not self-will’d, for thou art much too fair
- To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.
Sonnet 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 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.
Sonnet 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.”
Sonnet 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.

Sonnet 10
- For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any,
- Who for thyself art so unprovident.
- Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov’d of many,
- But that thou none lov’st is most evident;
- For thou art so possess’d 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 lodg’d 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.
Sonnet 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 endow’d she gave the more;
- Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish.
- She carv’d thee for her seal, and meant thereby,
- Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
Sonnet 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 all silver’d 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 defense
- Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
Sonnet 13
- O that you were yourself!
- So should that beauty which you hold in lease
- Find no determination; then you were
- Yourself again after yourself’s decease,
- When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
- Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
- Which husbandry in honor 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.
Sonnet 14
- Not from the stars do I my judgment 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.
Sonnet 15
- When I consider every thing that grows
- Holds in perfection but a little moment;
- That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
- Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
- When I perceive that men as plants increase,
- Cheered and check’d even by the self-same 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 ingraft you new.

- 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.
Sonnet 17
- Who will believe my verse in time to come
- If it were fill’d 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 touch’d earthly faces.”
- So should my papers (yellowed with their age)
- Be scorn’d, like old men of less truth than tongue,
- And your true rights be term’d 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.
Sonnet 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 dimm’d,
- And every fair from fair sometime declines,
- By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:
- But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
- Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
- Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest 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.
Sonnet 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-liv’d phoenix in her blood;
- Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
- And do what e’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.
Sonnet 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 prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,
- Mine be thy love, and thy love’s use their treasure.
Sonnet 21
- So is it not with me as with that Muse
- Stirr’d 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 fix’d in heaven’s air:
- Let them say more that like of hearsay well,
- I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
Sonnet 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.
Sonnet 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’ercharg’d 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 express’d.
- O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
- To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.
Sonnet 24
- 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, 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.
Sonnet 25
- Let those who are in favor with their stars
- Of public honor and proud titles boast,
- Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars
- Unlook’d for joy in that I honor most.
- Great princes’ favorites 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 honor razed quite,
- And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d.
- Then happy I that love and am beloved
- Where I may not remove, nor be removed.
Sonnet 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.
Sonnet 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.
Sonnet 28
- How can I then return in happy plight
- That am debarr’d the benefit of rest?
- When day’s oppression is not eas’d by night,
- But day by night and night by day oppress’d;
- 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 dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven;
- So flatter I the swart-complexion’d night,
- When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st th’ even:
- But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
- And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger.
Sonnet 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,
- Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
- 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 rememb’red such wealth brings,
- That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Sonnet 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 (unus’d to flow)
- For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
- And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
- And moan th’ expense of many a vanish’d 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 restor’d, and sorrows end.
Sonnet 31
- Thy bosom is endeared 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 remov’d 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 lov’d I view in thee,
- And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.
Sonnet 32
- If thou survive my well-contented day,
- When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
- And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
- These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
- Compare them with the bett’ring of the time,
- And though they be outstripp’d 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.”
Sonnet 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 splendor on my brow,
- But out, alack, he was but one hour mine,
- The region cloud hath mask’d him from me now.
- Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth:
- Suns of the world may stain, when heaven’s sun staineth.

- ’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 offense’s cross.
- Ah, but those tears are pearl which thy love sheeds,
- And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.
Sonnet 35
- 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,
- 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 accessary needs must be
- To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
Sonnet 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 honor me,
- Unless thou take that honor from thy name.
- But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
- As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
Sonnet 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 ingrafted to this store:
- So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis’d,
- Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,
- That I in thy abundance am suffic’d,
- 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!
Sonnet 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.
Sonnet 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 dost deceive,
- And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
- By praising him here who doth hence remain!
Sonnet 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 blam’d, if thou this self deceivest
- By willful 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.
Sonnet 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 she 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 forc’d to break a twofold truth:
- Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
- Thine by thy beauty being false to me.
Sonnet 42
- That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
- And yet it may be said I lov’d 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.
Sonnet 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 so!
- 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.
Sonnet 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 remov’d 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 nought by elements so slow
- But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.
Sonnet 45
- The other two, slight air and purging fire,
- Are both with thee, where ever 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, oppress’d with melancholy;
- Until live’s composition be recured
- By those swift messengers return’d 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.
Sonnet 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 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 impanelled
- 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.
Sonnet 47
- Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
- And each doth good turns now unto the other:
- When that mine eye is famish’d 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 are present still with me,
- For thou not 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.
Sonnet 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 lock’d 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.
Sonnet 49
- Against that time (if ever that time come)
- When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
- When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
- Call’d to that audit by advis’d 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,
- And this my hand against myself uprear,
- To guard the lawful reasons on thy part.
- To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
- Since why to love I can allege no cause.
Sonnet 50
- How heavy do I journey on the way,
- When what I seek (my weary travel’s end)
- Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
- “Thus far the miles are measur’d from thy friend.”
- The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
- Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
- As if by some instinct the wretch did know
- His rider lov’d not speed, being made from thee.

Sonnet 51
- Thus can my love excuse the slow offense
- Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed:
- From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?
- Till I return, of posting is no need.
- O, what excuse will my poor beast then find,
- When swift extremity can seem but slow?
- Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,
- In winged speed no motion shall I know.
- Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;
- Therefore desire (of perfect’st love being made)
- Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,
- But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade:
- Since from thee going he went willful-slow,
- Towards thee I’ll run, and give him leave to go.
Sonnet 52
- So am I as the rich whose blessed key
- Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
- The which he will not ev’ry hour survey,
- For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
- Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
- Since seldom coming, in the long year set,
- Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
- Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
- So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
- Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
- To make some special instant special blest,
- By new unfolding his imprison’d pride.
- Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
- Being had, to triumph, being lack’d, to hope.

- Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
- And you, but one, can every shadow lend:
- Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
- Is poorly imitated after you;
- On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,
- And you in Grecian tires are painted new;
- Speak of the spring and foison of the year,
- The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
- The other as your bounty doth appear,
- And you in every blessed shape we know.
- In all external grace you have some part,
- But you like none, none you, for constant heart.
Sonnet 54
- O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
- By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
- The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
- For that sweet odor which doth in it live.
- The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
- As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
- Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
- When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses;
- But for their virtue only is their show,
- They live unwoo’d, and unrespected fade,
- Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,
- Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made:
- And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
- When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.
Sonnet 55
- Not marble nor the gilded monuments
- Of princes shall outlive this pow’rful rhyme,
- But you shall shine more bright in these contents
- Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.
- When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
- And broils root out the work of masonry,
- Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
- The living record of your memory.
- ’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
- Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room,
- Even in the eyes of all posterity
- That wear this world out to the ending doom.
- So till the judgement that yourself arise,
- You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
Sonnet 56
- Sweet love, renew thy force, be it not said
- Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
- Which but to-day by feeding is allay’d,
- To-morrow sharp’ned in his former might.
- So, love, be thou: although to-day thou fill
- Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness,
- Tomorrow see again, and do not kill
- The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness:
- Let this sad int’rim like the ocean be
- Which parts the shore, where two contracted new
- Come daily to the banks, that when they see
- Return of love, more blest may be the view;
- As call it winter, which being full of care,
- Makes summer’s welcome thrice more wish’d, more rare.
Sonnet 57
- Being your slave, what should I do but tend
- Upon the hours and times of your desire?
- I have no precious time at all to spend,
- Nor services to do, till you require.
- Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
- Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
- Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
- When you have bid your servant once adieu.
- Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
- Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
- But like a sad slave stay and think of nought
- Save where you are how happy you make those.
- So true a fool is love that in your will
- (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.

- O, let me suffer (being at your beck)
- Th’ imprison’d absence of your liberty,
- And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
- Without accusing you of injury.
- Be where you list, your charter is so strong,
- That you yourself may privilege your time
- To what you will, to you it doth belong
- Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.
- I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
- Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.
Sonnet 59
- If there be nothing new, but that which is
- Hath been before, how are our brains beguil’d,
- Which laboring for invention bear amiss
- The second burden of a former child!
- O that record could with a backward look,
- Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
- Show me your image in some antique book,
- Since mind at first in character was done!
- That I might see what the old world could say
- To this composed wonder of your frame,
- Whether we are mended, or whe’er better they,
- Or whether revolution be the same.
- O, sure I am the wits of former days
- To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
Sonnet 60
- 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.
Sonnet 61
- Is it thy will thy image should keep open
- My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
- Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
- While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
- Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
- So far from home into my deeds to pry,
- To find out shames and idle hours in me,
- The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?
- O no, thy love, though much, is not so great,
- It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
- Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
- To play the watchman ever for thy sake.
- For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
- From me far off, with others all too near.
Sonnet 62
- Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,
- And all my soul, and all my every part;
- And for this sin there is no remedy,
- It is so grounded inward in my heart.
- Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
- No shape so true, no truth of such account,
- And for myself mine own worth do define,
- As I all other in all worths surmount.
- But when my glass shows me myself indeed,
- Beated and chopp’d with tann’d antiquity,
- Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
- Self so self-loving were iniquity.
- ’Tis thee (myself) that for myself I praise,
- Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
Sonnet 63
- Against my love shall be as I am now
- With Time’s injurious hand crush’d and o’erworn,
- When hours have drain’d his blood and fill’d his brow
- With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn
- Hath travel’d on to age’s steepy night,
- And all those beauties whereof now he’s king
- Are vanishing, or vanish’d out of sight,
- Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
- For such a time do I now fortify
- Against confounding age’s cruel knife,
- That he shall never cut from memory
- My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life.
- His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
- And they shall live, and he in them still green.
Sonnet 64
- When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced
- The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
- When sometime lofty towers I see down razed,
- And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
- When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
- Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
- And the firm soil win of the wat’ry main,
- Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
- When I have seen such interchange of state,
- Or state itself confounded to decay,
- Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
- That Time will come and take my love away.
- This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
- But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
Sonnet 65
- Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
- But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
- How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
- Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
- O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
- Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,
- When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
- Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
- O fearful meditation! Where, alack,
- Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
- Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
- Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
- O none, unless this miracle have might,
- That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

- Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
- And steal dead seeing of his living hue?
- Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
- Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
- Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
- Beggar’d of blood to blush through lively veins,
- For she hath no exchequer now but his,
- And proud of many, lives upon his gains?
- O, him she stores, to show what wealth she had
- In days long since, before these last so bad.
Sonnet 68
- Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
- When beauty liv’d and died as flowers do now,
- Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
- Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
- Before the golden tresses of the dead,
- The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
- To live a second life on second head;
- Ere beauty’s dead fleece made another gay:
- In him those holy antique hours are seen,
- Without all ornament, itself and true,
- Making no summer of another’s green,
- Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,
- And him as for a map doth Nature store,
- To show false Art what beauty was of yore.
Sonnet 69
- Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view
- Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
- All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,
- Utt’ring bare truth, even so as foes commend.
- Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown’d,
- But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,
- In other accents do this praise confound
- By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
- They look into the beauty of thy mind,
- And that in guess they measure by thy deeds,
- Then, churls, their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)
- To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
- But why thy odor matcheth not thy show,
- The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.
Sonnet 70
- That thou are blam’d shall not be thy defect,
- For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair;
- The ornament of beauty is suspect,
- A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air.
- So thou be good, slander doth but approve
- Thy worth the greater, being woo’d of time,
- For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
- And thou present’st a pure unstained prime.
- Thou hast pass’d by the ambush of young days,
- Either not assail’d, or victor being charg’d,
- Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise
- To tie up envy, evermore enlarg’d:
- If some suspect of ill mask’d not thy show,
- Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.
Sonnet 71
- 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 vildest 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.
Sonnet 72
- O, lest the world should task you to recite
- What merit liv’d in me that you should love
- After my death, dear love, forget me quite,
- For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
- Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
- To do more for me than mine own desert,
- And hang more praise upon deceased I
- Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
- O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
- That you for love speak well of me untrue,
- My name be buried where my body is,
- And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
- For I am sham’d by that which I bring forth,
- And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
Sonnet 73
- That time of year thou mayst in me behold
- When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
- Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
- Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
- In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
- As after sunset fadeth in the west,
- Which by and by black night doth take away,
- Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
- In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
- That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
- As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
- Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
- This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
- To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Sonnet 74
- But be contented when that fell arrest
- Without all bail shall carry me away,
- My life hath in this line some interest,
- Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
- When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
- The very part was consecrate to thee:
- The earth can have but earth, which is his due,
- My spirit is thine, the better part of me.
- So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
- The prey of worms, my body being dead,
- The coward conquest of a wretch’s knife,
- Too base of thee to be remembered.
- The worth of that is that which it contains,
- And that is this, and this with thee remains.
Sonnet 75
- So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
- Or as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground;
- And for the peace of you I hold such strife
- As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found:
- Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
- Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
- Now counting best to be with you alone,
- Then better’d that the world may see my pleasure;
- Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
- And by and by clean starved for a look;
- Possessing or pursuing no delight
- Save what is had or must from you be took.
- Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
- Or gluttoning on all, or all away.
Sonnet 76
- Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
- So far from variation or quick change?
- Why with the time do I not glance aside
- To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
- Why write I still all one, ever the same,
- And keep invention in a noted weed,
- That every word doth almost tell my name,
- Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
- O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,
- And you and love are still my argument;
- So all my best is dressing old words new,
- Spending again what is already spent:
- For as the sun is daily new and old,
- So is my love still telling what is told.
Sonnet 77
- Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
- Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,
- The vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear,
- And of this book this learning mayst thou taste.
- The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,
- Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
- Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know
- Time’s thievish progress to eternity.
- Look what thy memory cannot contain
- Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
- Those children nurs’d, deliver’d from thy brain,
- To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
- These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
- Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.
Sonnet 78
- So oft have I invok’d thee for my Muse,
- And found such fair assistance in my verse,
- As every alien pen hath got my use,
- And under thee their poesy disperse.

- 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.

- 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.
Sonnet 80
- 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 willfully appear.
- Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
- Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,
- Or (being wrack’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.
Sonnet 81
- 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.
Sonnet 82
- I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,
- And therefore mayest 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 enforc’d to seek anew
- Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.
- And do so, love; yet when they have devis’d
- What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
- Thou, truly fair, wert truly sympathiz’d
- In true plain words by thy true-telling friend;
- And their gross painting might be better us’d
- Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abus’d.
Sonnet 83
- 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.
Sonnet 84
- 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.
Sonnet 85
- My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
- While comments of your praise, richly compil’d,
- Reserve their character with golden quill
- And precious phrase by all the Muses fil’d.
- I think good thoughts whilst other write good words,
- And like unlettered 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.

- 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.
Sonnet 87
- 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 gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,
- Or me, to whom thou gav’st 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.
Sonnet 88
- When thou shalt be dispos’d 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 shall 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.
Sonnet 89
- Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
- And I will comment upon that offense;
- Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,
- Against thy reasons making no defense.
- 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.
Sonnet 90
- 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 scap’d this sorrow,
- Come in the rearward of a conquer’d woe;
- Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
- To linger out a purpos’d 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,
- Compar’d with loss of thee will not seem so.
Sonnet 91
- Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
- Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force,
- Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill,
- Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
- And every humor 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.
Sonnet 92
- 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 humor 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.
Sonnet 93
- 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;
- What e’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!
Sonnet 94
- They that have pow’r 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 flow’r is to the summer sweet,
- Though to itself it only live and die,
- But if that flow’r 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.
Sonnet 95
- 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 turns to fair that eyes can see!
- Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege,
- The hardest knife ill us’d doth lose his edge.
Sonnet 96
- Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
- Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
- Both grace and faults are lov’d of more and less:
- Thou mak’st 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 stern 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.
Sonnet 97
- 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 remov’d was summer’s time,
- The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
- Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
- Like widowed wombs after their lords’ decease:
- Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
- But hope of orphans and unfathered 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.
Sonnet 98
- 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 leapt with him.
- Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
- Of different flowers in odor 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.
Sonnet 99
- 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 dy’d.
- 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 robb’ry 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 color it had stol’n from thee.
Sonnet 100
- 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,
- Dark’ning thy pow’r 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.
Sonnet 101
- O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
- For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy’d?
- 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 color with his color 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 prais’d of ages yet to be.
- Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
- To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.
Sonnet 102
- My love is strength’ned, though more weak in seeming,
- I love 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 burdens 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.
Sonnet 103
- 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!

- 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.
Sonnet 104
- To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
- For as you were when first your eye I ey’d,
- 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 perceiv’d,
- So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
- Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv’d;
- For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:
- Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.
Sonnet 105
- 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.
Sonnet 106
- 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 still enough your worth to sing:
- For we which now behold these present days
- Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
Sonnet 107
- 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,
- Suppos’d as forfeit to a confin’d doom.
- The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur’d,
- And the sad augurs mock their own presage,
- Incertainties now crown themselves assur’d,
- 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.
Sonnet 108
- What’s in the brain that ink may character
- Which hath not figur’d to thee my true spirit?
- What’s new to speak, what now 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 hallowed 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.
Sonnet 109
- 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 rang’d,
- Like him that travels I return again,
- Just to the time, not with the time exchang’d,
- 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.
Sonnet 110
- Alas, ’tis true, I have gone here and there,
- And made myself a motley to the view,
- Gor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
- Made old offenses 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 prov’d 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 confin’d.
- Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
- Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.
Sonnet 111
- 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 subdu’d
- 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.

- 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.
Sonnet 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 flow’r, 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 favor 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.

- 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?

- If it be poison’d, ’tis the lesser sin
- That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
Sonnet 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 million’d accidents
- Creep in ’twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
- Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,
- Divert strong minds to th’ 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.
Sonnet 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 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.
Sonnet 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-purchas’d right;
- That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
- Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
- Book both my willfulness and errors down,
- And on just proof surmise accumulate;
- 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.
Sonnet 118
- 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, t’ 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.

Sonnet 119
- 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 rebuk’d to my content,
- And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.
Sonnet 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 brass or hammered steel.
- For if you were by my unkindness shaken
- As I by yours, y’ have 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 rememb’red
- My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
- And soon to you, as you to me then, tend’red
- The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits!
- But that your trespass now becomes a fee,
- Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
Sonnet 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.
Sonnet 122
- 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 raz’d 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.
Sonnet 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.
Sonnet 124
- 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 th’ inviting time our fashion calls;
- It fears not policy, that heretic,
- Which works on leases of short-numb’red hours,
- But all alone stands hugely politic,
- That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with show’rs.
- To this I witness call the fools of Time,
- Which die for goodness, who have liv’d for crime.
Sonnet 125
- Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,
- With my extern the outward honoring,
- Or laid great bases for eternity,
- Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
- Have I not seen dwellers on form and favor
- Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
- For compound sweet forgoing simple savor,
- 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.
Sonnet 126
- 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.

Sonnet 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 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 bow’r,
- But is profan’d, 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,
- Sland’ring creation with a false esteem:
- Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
- That every tongue says beauty should look so.
Sonnet 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.
Sonnet 129
- Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
- Is lust in action, and till action, lust
- Is perjur’d, murd’rous, 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 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 prov’d, a very woe,
- Before, a joy propos’d, behind, a dream.
- All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
- To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

- 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.
Sonnet 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 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.

Sonnet 132
- Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,
- Knowing thy heart torment 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 th’ 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.

Sonnet 133
- 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?

- 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 jail:
- And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,
- Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.
Sonnet 134
- So now I have confess’d that he is thine,
- And I myself am mortgag’d 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.
Sonnet 135
- 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.
Sonnet 136
- If thy soul check 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, fulfill.
- Will will fulfill 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 store’s 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.
Sonnet 137
- 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 transferred.
Sonnet 138
- 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 subtilties.
- 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 t’ have years told.
- Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
- And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
Sonnet 139
- 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 lov’st 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’erpress’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.
Sonnet 140
- 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.
Sonnet 141
- 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 pleas’d 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 heart’s slave and vassal wretch to be:
- Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
- That she that makes me sin awards me pain.
Sonnet 142
- 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.
Sonnet 143
- Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch
- One of her feathered creatures broke away,
- Sets down her babe and makes all 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 run’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.
Sonnet 144
- 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 color’d ill.

- And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend
- Suspect I may, yet 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.
Sonnet 145
- Those lips that Love’s own hand did make
- Breath’d 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 us’d 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 sav’d my life, saying “not you.”
Sonnet 146
- Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth,
- Feeding these rebel pow’rs 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?

Sonnet 147
- My love is as a fever, longing still
- For that which longer nurseth the disease,
- Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
- Th’ 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.
Sonnet 148
- 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.
Sonnet 149
- 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 low’r’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 lov’st, and I am blind.
Sonnet 150
- O, from what pow’r hast thou this pow’rful 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 warrantise 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 rais’d love in me,
- More worthy I to be belov’d of thee.
Sonnet 151
- 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 farther 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.
Sonnet 152
- 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 perjur’d 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 perjur’d eye,
- To swear against the truth so foul a lie!
Sonnet 153
- 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.
Sonnet 154
- 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 diseas’d, but I, my mistress’ thrall,
- Came there for cure, and this by that I prove:
- Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.