Let me confess that we two must be twain,

Then let not winter’s ragged hand defaceIn thee thy summer, ere thou be distill’d:Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some placeWith 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…

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…

Farewell!–God knows when we shall meet again.I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veinsThat almost freezes up the heat of life:I’ll call them back again to comfort me;–Nurse!–What should she do here?My dismal scene I needs must act alone.–Come, vial.–What if this mixture do not work at all?Shall I be married, then, to-morrow…

Lo, as a careful huswife runs to catchOne of her feathered creatures broke away,Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatchIn pursuit of the thing she would have stay,Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,Cries to catch her whose busy care is bentTo follow that which flies before her face,Not prizing her poor…

My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming;I love not less, though less the show appear;That love is merchandized, whose rich esteemingThe owner’s tongue doth publish everywhere.Our love was new, and then but in the springWhen I was wont to greet it with my lays,As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing,And stops her pipe…

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy powerDost hold Time’s fickle glass, his sickle, hour;Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’stThy 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 skillMay time disgrace and wretched…

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lieWhich we ascribe to heaven. The fated skyGives us free scope, only doth backward pullOur slow designs when we ourselves are dull.What power is it which mounts my love so high,That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?The mightiest space in fortune nature bringsTo join like likes and…

Or whether doth my mind, being crown’d with you,Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery?Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,And that your love taught it this alchemy,To make of monsters and things indigestSuch cherubins as your sweet self resemble,Creating every bad a perfect best,As fast as objects to his beams assemble?O,’tis the…