Read The Sonnets and Other Poems Online
Authors: William Shakespeare
The Sonnets and Other Poems (18 page)
TO THE ONLY
BEGETTER
OF
THESE INSUING SONNETS
MR. W. H.
ALL HAPPINESS
AND THAT
ETERNITY
PROMISED
BY
OUR EVER-LIVING POET
WISHETH
THE WELL-WISHING
ADVENTURER
IN
SETTING
FORTH
FROM fairest creatures we desire
increase
1
,
That
2
thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His
tender
4
heir might
bear his memory
:
But
thou
5
,
contracted
to thine own bright
eyes
,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel
6
,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s
fresh
9
ornament
And only
herald
10
to the
gaudy
spring,
Within thine own
bud
11
buriest thy
content
And,
tender churl
12
,
mak’st waste
in
niggarding
.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat
the world’s due
14
,
by the grave and thee
.
When
forty
1
winters shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s
field
2
,
Thy youth’s
proud livery
3
, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered
weed
4
of small worth held:
Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the
treasure
6
of thy
lusty
days,
To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an
all-eating shame
8
and
thriftless
praise.
How much more praise
deserved thy beauty’s use
9
If thou couldst
answer
10
, ‘This fair child of mine
Shall
sum my count
11
and
make my old excuse
’,
Proving his beauty by
succession
12
thine
.
This
were
13
to be new made when thou art old
And see thy
blood
14
warm when thou feel’st it cold.
Look in thy
glass
1
and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose
fresh repair
3
if now thou not renewest
Thou dost
beguile
4
the world,
unbless some mother
.
For where is she so fair whose
uneared
5
womb
Disdains the
tillage
6
of thy
husbandry
?
Or who is he so
fond
7
will be
the tomb
Of his self-love, to
stop
8
posterity
?
Thou art thy mother’s glass and she in thee
Calls back
10
the lovely April of her prime:
So thou through
windows
11
of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live
remembered not to be
13
,
Die
14
single and thine image dies with thee.
Unthrifty
1
loveliness, why dost thou
spend
Upon thyself thy
beauty’s legacy
2
?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And being
frank
4
she lends to
those
are
free
.
Then, beauteous
niggard
5
, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largesse given thee to give?
Profitless
usurer
7
, why dost thou
use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not
live
8
?
For having
traffic
9
with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive
10
.
Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable
audit
12
canst thou leave?
Thy
unused
13
beauty must be
tombed
with thee,
Which, usèd, lives
th’executor
14
to be.
Those hours, that with gentle work did
frame
1
The lovely
gaze
2
where every eye doth
dwell
,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that
unfair
4
which
fairly
doth excel:
For never-resting time
leads
5
summer on
To hideous winter and
confounds
6
him there,
Sap
checked
7
with frost and
lusty
leaves quite gone,
Beauty
o’ersnowed
8
and bareness everywhere.
Then, were not summer’s
distillation
9
left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass
10
,
Beauty’s effect
with
11
beauty
were bereft
,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was
12
.
But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
Lose but their
show
14
, their substance
still
lives sweet.
Then let not winter’s
1
ragged
hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some
vial
3
;
treasure
thou some
place
With beauty’s treasure, ere it be
self-killed
4
.
That
use
5
is not forbidden usury,
Which
happies
6
those that
pay the willing loan
;
That’s for thyself to breed another thee,
Or
ten times happier be it ten for one
8
.
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times
refigured
10
thee.
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in
posterity
12
?
Be not
self-willed
13
, for thou art much too
fair
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.
Lo, in the
orient
1
when the
gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each
under
2
eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty.
And having climbed the
steep-up
5
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
9
, with weary
car
,
Like feeble age he
reeleth
10
from the day,
The eyes,
fore
11
duteous, now
converted
are
From his low
tract
12
and look another way:
So thou,
thyself outgoing
13
in thy
noon
,
Unlooked on
diest
14
unless thou
get
a
son
.
Music to hear
1
, 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
4
?
If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,
By
unions
6
married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly
chide
7
thee, who
confounds
In
singleness
8
the
parts that thou shouldst bear
.
Mark
9
how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each
10
in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling
sire
11
and child and happy mother
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing,
Whose
speechless
13
song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee:
‘Thou single wilt prove none.’
14
Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye
That thou consum’st thyself in single life?
Ah, if thou
issueless
3
shalt
hap
to die,
The world will wail thee, like a
makeless
4
wife,
The world will be thy widow and
still
5
weep
That thou no
form
6
of thee hast left behind,
When every
private
7
widow well may keep
By
8
children’s eyes her husband’s shape in mind.
Look what
9
an
unthrift
in the world doth spend
Shifts but
his
10
place, for still
the world enjoys it
,
But
beauty’s waste
11
hath in the world an end,
And, kept
unused
12
, the
user
so destroys it.
No love toward others in that
bosom
13
sits
That on himself such
murd’rous shame
14
commits.
For shame
1
deny that thou
bear’st
love to any,
Who for thyself art so
unprovident
2
.
Grant
3
, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lov’st is most evident:
For thou art so possessed with murd’rous hate
That gainst thyself thou
stick’st
6
not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous
roof
7
to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
O, change thy
thought
9
, that I may change my
mind
.
Shall hate
be fairer lodged
10
than gentle love?
Be as thy
presence
11
is, gracious and
kind
,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove.
Make thee
another self
13
, for love of me,
That beauty
still
14
may live in
thine or thee
.
As fast as thou shalt
wane
1
, so fast thou grow’st
In
one of thine
2
,
from that which thou departest
,
And that
fresh blood
3
which
youngly
thou bestow’st,
Thou mayst call thine when thou
from youth
4
convertest
.
Herein
5
lives wisdom, beauty and
increase
:
Without this, folly, age and cold decay.
If all were
minded so
7
, the times should cease,
And
threescore year
8
would
make the world away
.
Let those whom nature hath not made
for store
9
,
Harsh,
featureless
10
and
rude
, barrenly perish.
Look whom
11
she best endowed she gave the more,
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst
in bounty
12
cherish.
She carved thee for her
seal
13
, and meant thereby
Thou shouldst
print
14
more, not let that
copy
die.
When I do
count
1
the clock that
tells
the time
And see the
brave
2
day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past
prime
3
And
sable
4
curls all silvered o’er with white,
When lofty trees I see
barren
5
of leaves,
Which
erst
6
from heat did
canopy
the herd,
And summer’s green all
girded up
7
in sheaves
Borne on the
bier
8
with
white and bristly beard
:
Then of thy beauty do I
question make
9
That thou among the
wastes
10
of time must go,
Since
sweets and beauties
11
do themselves
forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow,
And nothing gainst
Time’s scythe
13
can make defence
Save
breed
14
, to
brave
him when he takes thee hence.
O, that
you
1
were yourself! But, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself
here
2
live.
Against
3
this coming end you should prepare
And your sweet
semblance
4
to
some other
give.
So should that beauty which you hold
in lease
5
Find no
determination
6
: then you
were
Yourself again after yourself’s decease,
When
your sweet
issue
8
your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a
house
9
fall to decay,
Which
husbandry
10
in honour might uphold
Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day
And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?
O, none but
unthrifts
13
! Dear my love, you know
You had a father: let your son say so.