SONGS, &c.

CHIEFLY FROM THE ANCIENT DRAMATIC AUTHORS.

SHAKSPEARE.
SONNETS.

Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And keep my drooping eye-lids open wide, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

Looking on darkness which the blind doth see. When I behold the violet past prime,

Save that my soul's imaginary sight And sable curls, all silver'd o'er with white;

Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,

Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,

Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,

Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind, Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard;

For thee, and for myself, no quiet find. Then of thy beauty do I question make,

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, That thou among the wastes of time must go,

I all alone beweep my out-cast state, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And die as fast as they see others grow;

And look upon myself, and curse my fate, And nothing 'gainst time's scythe can make defence,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Save breed, to brave him, when he takes thee hence.

Featur'd like him, like him with friends possessid, But wherefore do not you a mightier way

Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time ?

With what I most enjoy contented least: And fortify yourself in your decay

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, With means more blessed than my barren rhime ?

Haply I think on thee,—and then my state Now stand you on the top of happy hours ;

(Like to the lark at break of day arising And many maiden gardens yet unset,

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate; With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,

For thy sweet love reinember'd, such wealth brings, Much liker than your painted counterfeit;

That then I scorn to change my state with kings. So should the lines of life that life repair, Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,

If thou survive my well-contented day, Neither in inward worth, nor outward fair,

When that churl death my bones with dust shall

And shalt by fortune once more re-survey (cover, Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
To give away yourself, keeps yourself still;
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

Compare them with the bettering of the time;

And though they be out-stripp'd by every pen, Let those who are in favour with their stars,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhime, Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Exceeded by the height of happier men. Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,

O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought! Unlook'd for joy in that I honour'd most.

Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age Great princes favourites their fair leaves spread,

A dearer birth than this his love had brought, But as the marigold at the sun's eye;

To march in ranks of better equipage: And in themselves their pride lies buried,

But since he died, and poets better prove, For at a frown they in their glory die.

Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love. The painful warrior famoused for fight, After a thousand victories once foil'd,

Full many a glorious morning have I seen Is from the book of honor razed quite,

Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd.

Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Then happy I, that love and am belov'd,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy; Where I may not remove, nor be removed.

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face, Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
But then begins a journey in my head,

E'en so my sun one early morn did shine,
To work my mind, when body's work's expired: With all triumphant splendour on my brow;
For then my thoughts (froin far where I abide) But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,

The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now,

Thus is his cheek the map of days out-worn, Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; When beauty liv'd and died as flowers do now, Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun

Before these bastard signs of fair were born, staineth.

Or durst inbabit on a living brow;

Before the golden tresses of the dead,
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,

The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,

To live a second life on second head,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.

E'er beauty's dead fleece made another gay;
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,

In him those holy antique hours are seen,

Without all ornament, itself, and true,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;
And when a woman woos, what woman's son

Making no summer of another's green,
Will sourly leave her till she have prevailid ?

Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;
Ah me! but yet thou might'st my sweet forbear,

And him as for a map doth nature store,
And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,

To shew false art what beauty was of yore.
Who lead thee in their riot even there

No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Where thou art forc'd to break a two-fold truth;

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Her's, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,

Give warning to the world that I am fled
Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, Nay, if you read this line, remember not
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.

If thinking on me then should make you woe.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a die, O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,

When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, When summer's breath their masked buds discloses : But let your love e'en with my life decay: But for their virtue only is their show,

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade;

And mock you with me after I am gone.
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so ;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:

0, lest the world should task you to recite And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

What merit liv'd in me, that you should love When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth.

After my death, dear love, forget me quite,

For you in me can nothing worthy prove; Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
Of princes, shall out-live this powerful rhyme; To do more for me than mine own desert,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents

And hang more praise upon deceased I,
Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.

Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

0, lest your true love may seem false in this, And broils root out the work of masonry,

That you for love speak well of me untrue, Nor Mars's sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn My name be buried where my body is, The living record of your memory.

And live no more to shame por me nor you. 'Gainst death and all oblivious enmity

For I am 'sham'd by that which I bring forth, Shall you pace forth ; your praise shall still fiud And so should you, to love things nothing worth. Even in the eyes of all posterity

[room, That wear this world out to the ending doom. That time of year thou may'st in me behold So till the judgment that yourself arise,

When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
The rich-proud cost of out-worn bury'd age; As after sun-set fadeth in the west,
When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd, Which by and by black night doth take away,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage ;

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
And the firm soil win of the wat’ry main,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store; Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
When I have seen such interchange of state, This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more
Or state itself confounded to decay ;

strong,
Ruin has taught me thus to ruminate-

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose Why is my verse so barren of new pride
But weep to have that which it fears to lose. So far from variation or quick change?

.

Why, with the time, do I not glance aside

Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.
To new-found methods and to compounds strange? In many looks the false heart's history
Why write I still all one, ever the same,

Is writ, in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange, And keep invention in a noted weed,

But heaven in thy creation did decree, That every word doth almost tell my name, That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell; Shewing their birth, and where they did proceed ? Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be, O know, sweet love, I always write of you,

Thy looks should nothing else but sweetness tell. And you and love are still my argument;

How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,
So all my best is dressing old words new,

If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!
Spending again what is already spent :
For as the sun is daily new and old,

How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee the pleasure of the fleeting year! So is my love still telling what is told.

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! So oft have I invok'd thee for my muse,

What old December's barenness every where ! And found such fair assistance in my verse,

And yet this time remov'd was summer's time; As every alien pen hath got my use,

The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, And under thee their poesy disperse.

Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing, Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease : And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me Have added feathers to the learned's wing,

But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit; And given grace a double majesty.

For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, Yet be most proud of that which I compile,

And thou away, the very birds are mute ; Whose influence is thine, and born of thee. Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer, In others' works thou dost but mend the style, That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near. And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;

From you have I been absent in the spring, But thou art all my art, and dost advance

When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim, As high as learning my rude ignorance.

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing ; Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. And I will comment upon that offence ;

* Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt;

Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Against th y reasons making no defence.

Could make me any summer's story tell, Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they To set a form upon desired change,

Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, [grew : As I'll myself disgrace: knowing thy will,

Nor praise the deep vermillion in the rose ;
I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange ; They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Be absent from thy walks ; and in my tongue Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell;

Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,
Lest I (too much profane) should do it wrong, As with your shadow I with these did play.
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.

My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seemFor thee, against myself I'll vow debate,

I love not less, though less the show appear: (ing; For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.

That love is merchandis’d, whose rich esteeming Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now; The owner's tongue doth publish every where. Now while the world is bent iny deeds to cross, Our love was new, and then but in the spring, Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow When I was wont to greet it with my lays ; And do not drop in for an after-loss:

As Philomel in summer's front doth sing, Ah! do not, when my heart hath scap'd this sorrow, And stops his pipe in growth of riper days: Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;

Not that the summer is less pleasant now Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.

But that wild music burdens every bough, If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. When other petty griefs have done their spite,

Therefore, like her, I sometimes hold my tongue, But in the onset come; so shall I taste

Because I would not dull you with my song. At first the very worst of Fortune's might; And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,

To me, fair friend, you never can be old, Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so.

For as you were, when first your eye I ey'd,

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold So shall I live, supposing thou art true,

Have from the forests shook three summer's pride; Like a deceived husband: so love's face

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d, May still seem love to me, though alter'd new ; In process of the seasons have I seen, Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place : Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, For there can live no hatred in thine eye,

Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.

1

(dear,

Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,

But makes antiquity for aye his page; Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived, Finding the first conceit of love there bred, So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Where time and outward form would show it deal. Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived: For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,

O never say that I was false of heart, Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

Tho' absence seem'd my flame to qualify.

As easy might I from myself depart, Let not my love be call'd idolatry,

As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie: Nor my beloved as an idol show,

That is my home of love: if I have rang’d, Since all alike my songs and praises be,

Like him that travels, I return again; To one, of one, still such, and ever so.

Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd, Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,

So that myself bring water for my stain. Still constant in a wondrous excellence;

Never believe, tho' in my nature reign'd Therefore my verse, to coustancy confin’d,

All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, One thing expressing, leaves out difference. That it could so preposterously be stain'd, Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,

To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words ; For nothing this wide universe I call,
And in this change is my invention spent,

Save thou, my rose ; in it thou art my all.
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone,

Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
Which three, till now, never kept seat in one.

And made myself a motley to the view,

Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most When in the chronicle of wasted time

Made old offences of affections new. I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth And beauty making-beautiful old rhyme,

Askance and strangely; but, by all above, In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights ; These blenches gave my heart another youth, Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love. Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

Now all is done, save what shall have no end: I see their antique pen would have express'd Mine appetite I never more will grind Even such a beauty as you master now.

On newer proof, to try an older friend, So all their praises are but prophecies

A God in love, to whom I am confin'd. of this our time, all you prefiguring ;

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, And, for they look'd but with divining eyes, E'en to thy pure and most most loving breast. They had not skill enough your worth to sing: For we, which now behold these present days,

O, for my sake, do thou with fortune chide, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

That did not better for my lise provide, Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Than public means, which public manners breeds. Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, Can yet the lease of my true love control,

And almost thence my nature is subdu'd Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin’d doom.

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,

Pity me then, and wish I were renew'd;
And the sad augurs mock their own presage; Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd, Potions of eysell, 'gainst my strong infection;
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.

No bitterness that I will bitter thinki,
Now with the drops of this most balmy time Nor double penance to correct correction.
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes, Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme, E'en that your pity is enough to cure me.
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes;
And thou in this shalt find thy monument, Let me not to the marriage of true miods
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

Admit impediments.

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,
What's in the brain that ink may character, Or bends with the remover to remove:
Which hath not figur’d to thee my true spirit? O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
What's new to speak, what new to register, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?

It is the star to every wandering bark,
Nothing, sweet boy: but yet, like prayers divine, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be
I must each day say o'er the very same;

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, Within his bending sickle's compass come; E'en as when first I hallow'd thy fair name. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, So that eternal love in love's fresh case

But bears it out e'en to the edge of doom. Weighs not the dust and injury of age,

If this be error, and upon me prov'd, Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.,

(taken.

a

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty, Is lust in action ; and till action, lust

Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle, Is perjur’d, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty ; Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

A little pale, with damask dye to grace her, Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight;

None fairer, nor one falser to deface her. Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,

Her lips to mine how often hath she join’d, Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,

Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing! On purpose laid to make the taker mad:

How many tales to please me hath she coin'd, Mad in pursuit, and in possession so ;

Dreading my love, the loss whereof still fearing! Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme ; Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings, A bliss in proof,—and prov'd, a very woe;

Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings. Before, a joy propos’d; behind, a dream:

She burnt with love, as straw with fire flameth, All this the world well knows; yet none knows well She burnt with love, as soon as straw out burneth; To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. She fram'd the love, and yet she foil'd the framing,

She bade love last, and yet she fell a turning. Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,

Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?
Knowing thy heart, torment me with disdain ;

Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.
Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain :

If music and sweet poetry agree,
And truly not the morning sun of heaven

As they must needs, the sister and the brother, Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,

Then inust the love be great 'twixt thee and me, Nor that full star that ushers in the even

Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other. Doth half that glory to the sober west,

Downland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch As those two mourning eyes become thy face.

Upon the lute doth ravish human sense ; O let it then as well beseem thy heart

Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such, To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace,

As passing all conceit, needs no defence. And suit thy pity like in every part.

Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound, Then will I swear beauty herself is black,

That Phæbus' lute, the queen of music, makes: And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd,
When as himself to singing he betakes.

One god is god of both, as poets feign;
O call not me to justify the wrong,

One knight loves both, and both in thee remain. That thy unkindness lays upon my heart ; Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue ; Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon faded, Use power with power, and slay me not by art.

Pluck'd in the bud, and faded in the spring! Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight,

Bright orient pearl, alack ! too timely shaded ! Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside. Fair creature, kill'd too soon by death's sharp sting! What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy

Like a green plum that hangs upon a tree, might

And falls, through wind, before the fall should be. Is more than my o'erpress'd defence can bide?

I weep for thee, and yet no cause I have ; Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows

For why? 'thou left'st me nothing in thy will. Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;

And yet thou left'st me more than I did crave; And therefore from my face she turns my foes,

For why? I craved nothing of thee still: That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:

O yes, dear friend, I pardon crave of thee; Yet do not so ; but since I am near slain,

Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me. Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.

Crabbed age and youth, Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,

Cannot live together; 'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,

Youth is full of pleasance,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Age is full of care :
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment. Youth like summer morn,
A woman 1 forswore; but I will prove,

Age like winter weather;
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee :

Youth like suinmer brave,
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love ; Age like winter bare.
Thy grace being gain’d, cures all disgrace in me. Youth is full of sport,
My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is ; Age's breath is short,
Then thou fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, Youth is nimble, age is lame;
Exhal’st this vapour vow ; in thee it is:

Youth is hot and bold,
If broken, then it is no fault of mine.

Age is weak and cold; If by me broke, what fool is not so wise

Youth is wild, and age is tame. To break an oath to win a paradise ?

Age, I do abhor thee; Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle,

Youth I do adore thee;