148.

iv

HY bosom is endeared with all hearts

THY

Which I, by lacking, have supposed dead: And there reigns Love, and all Love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye, As interest of the dead!—which now appear But things removed that hidden in thee lie. Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, Who all their parts of me to thee did give: -That due of many now is thine alone: Their images I loved I view in thee, And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.

WHAT is your substance, whereof are you made,

WH

That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

Since every one hath, every one, one shade,

And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;

On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring and foison of the year,
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear;
And you in every blessed shape we know.

In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you, for constant heart.
149. foison] plenty.

150

O

vi

HOW much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The Canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the Roses, Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly When summer's breath their maskèd buds discloses : But for their virtue only is their show— They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade, Die to themselves. Sweet Roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made. And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall vade, my verse distils your truth.

BEING your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those!
So true a fool is love, that in your Will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

THAT time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold-
Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after Sunset fadeth in the West,

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

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 back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment making.

Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter
In sleep a King; but waking no such matter.

THEN hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss :

Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset come: so shall I taste

At first the very worst of fortune's might;

And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so!

155.

THEY

X1

HEY that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow-
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the Lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die;

But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

HOW like a Winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,
What old December's bareness everywhere!

And yet this time removed was summer's time;
The teeming Autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime

Like widow'd wombs after their Lord's decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;
For Summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute:
Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the Winter's near.

FROM you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell,

Or from their proud 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 sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

Yet seem'd it Winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.