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 humour 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.
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 colour with his colour fixed,Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay,But best is best, if never intermixed’?Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?Excuse not silence so, for’t lies in theeTo…
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,And do whate’er thou wilt swift-footed TimeTo 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…
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 youthAnd delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,Feeds on the rarities of…
Since all alike my songs and praises beTo 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 confined,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…
So is it not with me as with that MuseStirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse,Who heaven itself for ornament doth useAnd every fair with his fair doth rehearseMaking 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 rareThat heaven’s air in this…
Let not my love be called idolatry,Nor my belovèd as an idol show,Since all alike my songs and praises beTo one, of one, still such, and ever so.Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind,Still constant in a wondrous excellence;Therefore my verse to constancy confined,One thing expressing, leaves out difference.“Fair, kind, and true” is all my…
