Shakespeare's Sonnets - William Shakespeare (classic romance novels .TXT) š
- Author: William Shakespeare
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If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks,
Be anchorād in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyesā falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
Why should my heart think that a several plot,
Which my heart knows the wide worldās common place?
Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not,
To put fair truth upon so foul a face?
In things right true my heart and eyes have errād,
And to this false plague are they now transferrād.
CXXXVIII
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutorād youth,
Unlearned in the worldās false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O! loveās best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatterād be.
CXXXIX
O! call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue:
Use power with power, and slay me not by art,
Tell me thou lovāst elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:
What needāst thou wound with cunning, when thy might
Is more than my oāerpressād defence can bide?
Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,
Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.
CXL
Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;ā
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know;ā
For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee;
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
CXLI
In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But ātis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.
Nor are mine ears with thy tongueās tune delighted;
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswayād the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heartās slave and vassal wretch to be:
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.
CXLII
Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:
O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;
Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profanād their scarlet ornaments
And sealād false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robbād othersā bedsā revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovāst those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example mayst thou be denied!
CXLIII
Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her featherād creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infantās discontent;
So runnāst thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the motherās part, kiss me, be kind;
So will I pray that thou mayst have thy āWill,ā
If thou turn back and my loud crying still.
CXLIV
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colourād ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil,
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turnād fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in anotherās hell:
Yet this shall I neāer know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
CXLV
Those lips that Loveās own hand did make,
Breathed forth the sound that said āI hateā,
To me that languishād for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was usād in giving gentle doom;
And taught it thus anew to greet;
āI hateā she alterād with an end,
That followed it as gentle day,
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
āI hateā, from hate away she threw,
And savād my life, saying ānot youā.
CXLVI
Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth these rebel powers array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy bodyās end?
Then soul, live thou upon thy servantās loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, thereās no more dying then.
CXLVII
My love is as a fever longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmenās are,
At random from the truth vainly expressād;
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
CXLVIII
O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight;
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Loveās eye is not so true as all menās: no,
How can it? O! how can Loveās eye be true,
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keepāst me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
CXLIX
Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
When I against myself with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,
On whom frownāst thou that I do fawn upon,
Nay, if thou lourāst on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in my self respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
Those that can see thou lovāst, and I am blind.
CL
O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,
With insufficiency my heart to sway?
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O! though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:
If thy unworthiness raisād love in me,
More worthy I to be belovād of thee.
CLI
Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross bodyās treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her ālove,ā for whose dear love I rise and fall.
CLII
In loving thee thou knowāst I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing:
But why of two oathsā breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjurād most;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is lost:
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them swear against the thing they see;
For I have sworn thee fair; more perjurād I,
To swear against the truth so foul a lie.!
CLIII
Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:
A maid of Dianās this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrowād from this holy fire of Love,
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seeting bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistressā eye Loveās brand new-fired,
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;
I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,
And thither hied, a sad distemperād guest,
But found no cure, the bath for my help lies
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