In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,

If not from my love’s breath? The purple prideWhich on thy soft cheek for complexion dwellsIn my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.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…

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 engrafted to this store:So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,Whilst that this shadow…

Thine own sweet argument, too excellentFor every vulgar paper to rehearse?O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in meWorthy perusal stand against thy sight;For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee,When thou thy self dost give invention light?Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worthThan those old nine which rhymers invocate;And…

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…

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 meetnessTo be diseased ere that there was true needing.Thus policy in love t’ anticipateThe ills that were not, grew to faults…

Or at your hand th’ account of hours to crave,Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure!O, let me suffer, being at your beck,Th’ imprisoned 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 strongThat you your self may privilage your timeTo…

Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:They rightly do inherit heaven’s gracesAnd husband nature’s riches from expense;They are the lords and owners of their faces,Others but stewards of their excellence.The summer’s flower is to the summer sweetThough to itself it only live and die,But if that flower with base infection…

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 deedsThere is such strength and warrantise of skillThat, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?Who taught thee how to make me love thee…