The Sonnets and Other Poems (20 page)
Read The Sonnets and Other Poems Online
Authors: William Shakespeare
When
in disgrace
1
with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone
beweep
2
my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my
bootless
3
cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed
6
,
Desiring this man’s
art
7
and that man’s
scope
,
With what I most enjoy contented least
8
:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply
10
I think on thee and then my
state
,
Like to the lark at break of day arising,
From
sullen
12
earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to
change
14
my state with kings.
When to the
sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon
1
up remembrance of things past,
I
sigh
3
the lack of many a thing I sought
And with old woes
new wail
4
my
dear
time’s waste.
Then can I drown an eye, unused to
flow
5
,
For precious friends hid in death’s
dateless
6
night,
And weep afresh love’s long since
cancelled
7
woe,
And moan
th’expense
8
of many a vanished sight.
Then can I grieve at
grievances foregone
9
,
And
heavily
10
from woe to woe
tell o’er
The sad
account
11
of
fore-bemoanèd moan
,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
Thy
1
bosom
is
endearèd with
all hearts,
Which I by
lacking
2
have supposèd dead,
And there reigns love and all love’s loving
parts
3
And all those friends which I thought burièd.
How many a holy and
obsequious
5
tear
Hath
dear
6
religious
love stol’n from mine eye
As
interest
7
of the dead, which now appear
But things
removed
8
that hidden in
there
lie.
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the
trophies
10
of my lovers gone,
Who
all their parts of me to thee did give
11
:
That due of
12
many now is thine alone.
Their images
I loved
13
I view in thee,
And thou, all they, hast all the all of me
14
.
If thou survive
my well-contented day
1
,
When that
churl
2
death my bones with dust shall cover,
And shalt by
fortune
3
once more resurvey
These poor
rude
4
lines of thy deceasèd lover,
Compare them with the
bett’ring of the time
5
,
And though they be outstripped by every pen,
Reserve
7
them for my love, not for their
rhyme
,
Exceeded by the
height
8
of
happier
men.
O, then
vouchsafe
9
me but this loving thought:
‘Had my friend’s
Muse
10
grown with this growing age,
A
dearer birth
11
than this his love had brought
To
march in ranks of better equipage
12
,
But since he died and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love.’
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly
alchemy
4
,
Anon
5
permit the
basest
clouds to ride
With ugly
rack
6
on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his
visage
7
hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With
all-triumphant
10
splendour on my brow:
But
out, alack
11
, he was but one hour mine,
The
region cloud
12
hath masked him from me now.
Yet him for this my love
no whit
13
disdaineth:
Suns of the world
14
may
stain
when heaven’s sun staineth.
Why didst
thou
1
promise such a beauteous day
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy
brav’ry
4
in their
rotten smoke
?
’Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a
salve
7
can speak
That heals the wound and cures not the
disgrace
8
.
Nor can thy shame give
physic
9
to my grief:
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss.
Th’offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence’s
cross
12
.
Ah, but those tears are pearl, which thy love sheds,
And they are rich and
ransom
14
all ill deeds.
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns and silver fountains mud,
Clouds and eclipses
stain
3
both moon and sun,
And loathsome
canker
4
lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare
6
,
Myself
corrupting
7
,
salving
thy amiss
,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are
8
:
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense
9
—
Thy adverse party is thy advocate
10
—
And
gainst myself a lawful plea commence
11
.
Such civil war is in my love and hate
That I an
accessory
13
needs must be
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
Let me confess that we two must be
twain
1
,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those
blots
3
that do with me remain,
Without thy help by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one
respect
5
,
Though in our lives a
separable spite
6
,
Which though it alter not love’s
sole
7
effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.
I may
not evermore acknowledge thee
9
,
Lest
my bewailèd guilt
10
should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou
take that honour from thy name
12
.
But do not so: I love thee in such
sort
13
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report
14
.
As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune’s
dearest spite
3
,
Take all my comfort
of
4
thy worth and truth.
For whether beauty, birth or wealth or
wit
5
,
Or any of these all or all or more,
Entitled in thy parts do crownèd sit
7
,
I
make my love engrafted to this store
8
:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
Whilst that this
shadow
10
doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am
sufficed
11
And by a part of all thy glory live.
Look what
13
is best, that best I wish in thee.
This wish I have: then ten times happy me.
How can my
Muse
1
want subject to invent
,
While thou dost breathe, that pour’st into my verse
Thine own sweet
argument
3
, too excellent
For every
vulgar paper to rehearse
4
?
O, give thyself the thanks, if
aught
5
in me
Worthy perusal
6
stand against thy sight
,
For who’s so
dumb
7
that cannot write to thee,
When thou thyself
dost give invention light
8
?
Be thou the
tenth Muse
9
, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which
rhymers invocate
10
,
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date
12
.
If my
slight Muse
13
do please these
curious
days,
The
pain
14
be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
O, how thy
worth
1
with manners
may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is’t but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for
5
this let us divided live,
And our
dear
6
love lose name of single one,
That
7
by this separation I may give
That due to thee which thou deserv’st alone.
O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave
To
entertain
11
the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly dost deceive
12
,
And that thou teachest how to make one
twain
13
By praising him
here
14
who doth
hence
remain.
Take
1
all my loves
, my love, yea, take them all:
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call:
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if
for my love
5
thou my love receivest
,
I cannot blame thee
for my love thou usest
6
.
But yet be blamed, if thou
this self
7
deceivest
By
wilful taste
8
of what thyself
refusest
.
I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief,
Although thou
steal thee
10
all
my poverty
:
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear
love’s wrong
12
than hate’s known injury.
Lascivious grace
13
, in whom
all ill well shows
,
Kill me with
spites
14
, yet we must not be foes.
Those pretty wrongs that
liberty
1
commits
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits
3
,
For
still
4
temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle
5
thou art and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be
assailed
6
.
And when a woman woos, what woman’s son
Will
sourly
8
leave her till he have
prevailed
?
Ay me, but yet thou mightst
my
9
seat
forbear
And
chide
10
thy beauty and thy
straying
youth,
Who lead thee in their
riot
11
even there
Where thou art forced to break a two-fold
truth
12
:
Hers
13
by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine
14
by thy beauty being
false
to me.
That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,
That she hath thee is
of my wailing chief
3
,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders
5
, thus I will excuse ye:
Thou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her,
And for my sake
even so
7
doth she
abuse
me,
Suff’ring
8
my friend for my sake to
approve
her.
If I lose thee, my loss is
my love’s
9
gain,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss:
Both find each other and I lose
both twain
11
,
And both for my sake lay on me this
cross
12
.
But here’s the joy: my friend and I are one.
Sweet
flatt’ry
14
! Then she loves but me alone.
When most I
wink
1
, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things
unrespected
2
,
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee
And,
darkly bright, are bright in dark directed
4
.
Then thou, whose
shadow shadows doth make bright
5
,
How would
thy shadow’s form form happy show
6
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy
shade
8
shines so?
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessèd made
By looking on thee in the
living
10
day,
When in dead night thy fair
imperfect
11
shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay?
All days
are nights to see
13
till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.