The Sonnets and Other Poems (24 page)
Read The Sonnets and Other Poems Online
Authors: William Shakespeare
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When
proud-pied
2
April dressed in all his
trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That
4
heavy Saturn
laughed and leaped with him.
Yet
nor
5
the
lays
of birds nor the sweet smell
Of
different flowers
6
in odour and in hue
Could make me any
summer’s
7
story tell,
Or from their
proud
8
lap
pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose.
They were
but
11
sweet, but
figures
of delight,
Drawn
after
12
you, you
pattern
of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still and, you away,
As
14
with your
shadow
I with these did play.
The
forward
1
violet thus did I
chide
:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal
thy sweet that smells
2
,
If not from my love’s breath? The
purple pride
3
Which on thy soft cheek
for complexion
4
dwells
In my love’s veins thou hast too
grossly
5
dyed.
The lily I
condemnèd for thy hand
6
,
And
buds of marjoram
7
had stol’n thy hair:
The roses fearfully
on thorns did stand
8
,
One blushing shame, another
white
9
despair,
A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both
And to his robb’ry had
annexed thy breath
11
:
But
for
12
his theft, in
pride of all his growth
,
A vengeful
canker
13
eat
him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stol’n from thee
15
.
Where art thou,
Muse
1
, that thou forget’st so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend’st thou thy
fury
3
on some worthless song,
Dark’ning thy power to lend base subjects light
4
?
Return, forgetful Muse, and
straight
5
redeem
In
gentle numbers
6
time so
idly
spent,
Sing to the ear that doth thy
lays
7
esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and
argument
8
.
Rise,
resty
9
Muse, my love’s sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle
graven
10
there,
If any, be a
satire to
11
decay
And make Time’s
spoils
12
despisèd everywhere.
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
So
14
thou
prevent’st
his
scythe and crooked knife
.
O truant
Muse
1
,
what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of
truth in beauty dyed
2
?
Both truth and beauty on my love
depends
3
,
So dost thou too, and therein
dignified
4
.
Make answer, Muse. Wilt thou not
haply
5
say,
‘Truth needs no
colour
6
, with
his colour fixed
,
Beauty no
pencil
7
, beauty’s truth
to lay
,
But best is best, if never
intermixed
8
’?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for’t
lies in thee
10
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
Then do thy
office
13
, Muse. I teach thee how
To make him seem
long hence
14
, as he
shows
now.
My love is strengthened, though more weak in
seeming
1
:
I love not less, though less the show appear.
That love is
merchandised
3
whose
rich esteeming
The owner’s tongue doth
publish
4
everywhere.
Our love was new and then but in the spring,
When I was
wont
6
to greet it with my
lays
,
As
Philomel
7
in
summer’s front
doth sing
And stops his
pipe
8
in growth of riper days
:
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that
wild
11
music
burdens
every bough,
And
sweets
12
grown common lose their dear delight.
Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue,
Because I would not
dull
14
you with my song.
Alack, what
poverty
1
my Muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her
pride
2
,
The
argument all bare
3
is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside.
O, blame me not, if I no more can write.
Look in your
glass
6
, and there appears a face
That
overgoes
7
my blunt
invention
quite,
Dulling
8
my lines and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then, striving to
mend
9
,
To
mar
10
the subject that before was well?
For to no other
pass
11
my verses tend
Than of your
graces
12
and your gifts to tell.
And more, much more, than in my verse can sit
Your own glass shows you when you look in it.
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your
eye I eyed
2
,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers’
pride
4
,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh,
which yet are green
8
.
Ah yet doth beauty, like a
dial hand
9
,
Steal
10
from his
figure
and no
pace
perceived:
So your sweet
hue
11
, which methinks
still doth stand
,
Hath motion
12
and mine eye may be deceived.
For fear of which, hear this, thou
age unbred
13
:
Ere
14
you were born was beauty’s summer dead.
Let not my love be called
idolatry
1
,
Nor my belovèd as an idol
show
2
,
Since
3
all alike my songs and praises be
To one
4
, of one,
still
such and ever so.
Kind
5
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
9
, kind and
true
’ is all my
argument
,
‘Fair, kind and true’
varying to
10
other words,
And in this change is my
invention spent
11
,
Three themes in one
12
, which wondrous scope affords.
Fair, kind and true have often lived alone,
Which three till now never
kept seat
14
in one.
When in the
chronicle
1
of
wasted
time
I see descriptions of the fairest
wights
2
,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and
lovely
4
knights,
Then in the
blazon
5
of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even
8
such a beauty as you
master
now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
And,
for
11
they looked but with
divining
eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to
wonder
14
, but lack tongues to praise.
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet
the lease of my true love control
3
,
Supposed
as forfeit to a confined doom
4
.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse
5
endured
And the sad
augurs
6
mock their own
presage
,
Incertainties now crown themselves assured
7
And peace proclaims
olives of endless age
8
.
Now with the drops of this most
balmy
9
time
My love looks fresh and Death to me
subscribes
10
,
Since, spite of him, I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
While he
insults
12
o’er dull and speechless tribes.
And thou in this shalt find thy
monument
13
,
When tyrants’
crests
14
and tombs of brass are
spent
.
What’s in the brain that ink may
character
1
Which hath not
figured
2
to thee my true spirit?
What’s new to speak, what now to
register
3
,
That may express my love or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine
I must each day say o’er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I
hallowed
8
thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love’s fresh
case
9
Weighs not
10
the dust and injury of age,
Nor
gives to necessary wrinkles place
11
,
But makes
antiquity
12
for
aye
his
page
,
Finding the first
conceit
13
of love
there
bred,
Where time and outward form would
show it
14
dead.
O, never say that I was
false of heart
1
,
Though absence seemed
my flame to qualify
2
.
As easy might I from myself depart
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love. If I have
ranged
5
,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged
7
,
So that myself bring
water for my stain
8
.
Never believe, though in my nature reigned
All
frailties
10
that besiege all kinds of
blood
,
That it could so
preposterously
11
be
stained
,
To leave
for nothing
12
all thy sum of good:
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose — in it thou art my all.
Alas, ’tis true, I have
gone
1
here and there
And made myself a
motley
2
to the view,
Gored
3
mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new
4
.
Most true it is that I have looked on truth
Askance and strangely
6
, but, by
all above
,
These
blenches
7
gave my heart another youth,
And
worse essays
8
proved thee my best of love.
Now all is done, have
what shall have no end
9
:
Mine
appetite
10
I never more will
grind
On newer
proof
11
, to
try
an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am
confined
12
.
Then give me welcome,
next my heaven the best
13
,
Even to thy pure and
most most loving
14
breast.
O, for my sake do you
with Fortune chide
1
,
The guilty goddess
of
2
my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide
Than
public means
4
which
public manners breeds
.
Thence comes it that my name receives a
brand
5
,
And
almost
6
thence my nature is
subdued
To
what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.
Pity me then and wish I were
renewed
8
,
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of
eisel
10
gainst my strong infection,
No bitterness
11
that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance to
correct correction
12
.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.