Sonnet CVI.

“When in the chronicle of wasted time”

WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time   
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,   
And beauty making beautiful old rime,   
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,   
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,            5
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,   
I see their antique pen would have express’d   
Even such a beauty as you master now.   
So all their praises are but prophecies   
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;     10
And, for they look’d 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, but lack tongues to praise.   

Sonnet CVII.

“Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul”

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,   
Suppos’d as forfeit to a confin’d doom.   
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur’d,            5
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;   
Incertainties now crown themselves assur’d,   
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.   
Now with the drops of this most balmy time   
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,     10
Since, spite of him, I ’ll live in this poor rime,   
While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes:   
  And thou in this shalt find thy monument,   
  When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.   

Sonnet CVIII.

“What ’s in the brain, that ink may character”

WHAT ’S in the brain, that ink may character   
Which hath not figur’d to thee my true spirit?   
What ’s new to speak, what new to register,   
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?   
Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,            5
I must each day say o’er the very same;   
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,   
Even as when first I hallow’d thy fair name.   
So that eternal love in love’s fresh case   
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,     10
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,   
But makes antiquity for aye his page;   
  Finding the first conceit of love there bred,   
  Where time and outward form would show it dead.   

Sonnet CIX.

“O! never say that I was false of heart”

O! NEVER say that I was false of heart   
Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify.   
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 rang’d,            5
Like him that travels, I return again;   
Just to the time, not with the time exchang’d,   
So that myself bring water for my stain.   
Never believe, though in my nature reign’d,   
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,     10
That it could so preposterously be stain’d,   
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;   
  For nothing this wide universe I call,   
  Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.   

Sonnet CX.

“Alas! ’tis true I have gone here and there”

ALAS! ’tis true I have gone here and there   
And made myself a motley to the view,   
Gor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,   
Made old offences of affections new;   
Most true it is that I have look’d on truth            5
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,   
These blenches gave my heart another youth,   
And worse essays prov’d thee my best of love.   
Now all is done, save what shall have no end:   
Mine appetite I never more will grind     10
On newer proof, to try an older friend,   
A god in love, to whom I am confin’d.   
  Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,   
  Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.   

Sonnet CXI.

“O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide”

O! FOR my sake do you with Fortune chide   
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,   
That did not better for my life provide   
Than public means which public manners breeds.   
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,            5
And almost thence my nature is subdu’d   
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:   
Pity me, then, and wish I were renew’d;   
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink   
Potions of eisel ’gainst my strong infection;     10
No bitterness that I will bitter think,   
Nor double penance, to correct correction.   
  Pity me, then, dear friend, and I assure ye   
  Even that your pity is enough to cure me.   

Sonnet CXII.

“Your love and pity doth the impression fill”

YOUR love and pity doth the impression fill   
Which vulgar scandal stamp’d upon my brow;   
For what care I who calls me well or ill,   
So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow?   
You are my all-the-world, and I must strive            5
To know my shames and praises from your tongue;   
None else to me, nor I to none alive,   
That my steel’d sense or changes right or wrong.   
In so profound abysm I throw all care   
Of other’s voices, that my adder’s sense     10
To critic and to flatterer stopped are.   
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:   
  You are so strongly in my purpose bred,   
  That all the world besides methinks are dead.   

Sonnet CXIII.

“Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind”

SINCE I left you, mine eye is in my mind   
And that which governs me to go about   
Doth part his function and is partly blind,   
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;   
For it no form delivers to the heart            5
Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch:   
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,   
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;   
For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,   
The most sweet favour or deformed’st creature,     10
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,   
The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature:   
  Incapable of more, replete with you,   
  My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.   

Sonnet CXIV.

“Or whether doth my mind, being crown’d with you”

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 alchymy,   
To make of monsters and things indigest            5
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,   
Creating every bad a perfect best,   
As fast as objects to his beams assemble?   
O! ’tis the first, ’tis flattery in my seeing,   
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:     10
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is ’greeing,   
And to his palate doth prepare the cup:   
  If it be poison’d, ’tis the lesser sin   
  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.   

Sonnet CXV.

“Those lines that I before have writ do lie”

THOSE lines that I before have writ do lie   
Even those that said I could not love you dearer:   
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why   
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.   
But reckoning Time, whose million’d accidents            5
Creep in ’twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,   
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,   
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;   
Alas! why, fearing of Time’s tyranny,   
Might I not then say, ‘Now I love you best,’     10
When I was certain o’er incertainty,   
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?   
  Love is a babe; then might I not say so,   
  To give full growth to that which still doth grow?