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The Sonnets of William Shakespeare
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CXXI.
- 'TIS better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
- When not to be receives reproach of being,
- And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd
- Not by our feeling but by others' seeing:
- For why should others false adulterate eyes
- Give salutation to my sportive blood?
- Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
- Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
- No, I am that I am, and they that level
- At my abuses reckon up their own:
- I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel;
- By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown;
- Unless this general evil they maintain,
- All men are bad, and in their badness reign.
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CXXII.
- THY gift, thy tables, are within my brain
- Full character'd with lasting memory,
- Which shall above that idle rank remain
- Beyond all date, even to eternity;
- Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
- Have faculty by nature to subsist;
- Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
- Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.
- That poor retention could not so much hold,
- Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
- Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
- To trust those tables that receive thee more:
- To keep an adjunct to remember thee
- Were to import forgetfulness in me.
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CXXIII.
- NO, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:
- Thy pyramids built up with newer might
- To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
- They are but dressings of a former sight.
- Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
- What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
- And rather make them born to our desire
- Than think that we before have heard them told.
- Thy registers and thee I both defy,
- Not wondering at the present nor the past,
- For thy records and what we see doth lie,
- Made more or less by thy continual haste.
- This I do vow and this shall ever be;
- I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.
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CXXIV.
- IF my dear love were but the child of state,
- It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd'
- As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,
- Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.
- No, it was builded far from accident;
- It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
- Under the blow of thralled discontent,
- Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls:
- It fears not policy, that heretic,
- Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,
- But all alone stands hugely politic,
- That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with showers.
- To this I witness call the fools of time,
- Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
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CXXV.
- WERE 't aught to me I bore the canopy,
- With my extern the outward honouring,
- Or laid great bases for eternity,
- Which prove more short than waste or ruining?
- Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
- Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
- For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,
- Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
- No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
- And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
- Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art,
- But mutual render, only me for thee.
- Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul
- When most impeach'd stands least in thy control.
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CXXVI.
- O THOU, my lovely boy, who in thy power
- Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;
- Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
- Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow'st;
- If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
- As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
- She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
- May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
- Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
- She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:
- Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be,
- And her quietus is to render thee.
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CXXVII.
- IN the old age black was not counted fair,
- Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
- But now is black beauty's successive heir,
- And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame:
- For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
- Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face,
- Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
- But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
- Therefore my mistress' brows are raven black,
- Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
- At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
- Slandering creation with a false esteem:
- Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
- That every tongue says beauty should look so.
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CXXVIII.
- HOW oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,
- Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
- With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
- The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
- Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
- To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
- Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
- At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
- To be so tickled, they would change their state
- And situation with those dancing chips,
- O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
- Making dead wood more blest than living lips.
- Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
- Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
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CXXIX.
- THE expense of spirit in a waste of shame
- Is lust in action; and till action, lust
- Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
- Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
- Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
- Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
- Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
- On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
- Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
- Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
- A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
- Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
- All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
- To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
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CXXX.
- MY mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
- Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
- If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
- If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
- I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
- But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
- And in some perfumes is there more delight
- Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
- I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
- That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
- I grant I never saw a goddess go;
- My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
- And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
- As any she belied with false compare.
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CXXXI.
- THOU art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
- As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
- For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart
- Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
- Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold
- Thy face hath not the power to make love groan:
- To say they err I dare not be so bold,
- Although I swear it to myself alone.
- And, to be sure that is not false I swear,
- A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,
- One on another's neck, do witness bear
- Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.
- In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
- And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.
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CXXXII.
- THINE eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
- Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain,
- Have put on black and loving mourners be,
- Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
- And truly not the morning sun of heaven
- Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
- Nor that full star that ushers in the even
- Doth half that glory to the sober west,
- As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
- O, let it then as well beseem thy heart
- To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace,
- And suit thy pity like in every part.
- Then will I swear beauty herself is black
- And all they foul that thy complexion lack.
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CXXXIII.
- BESHREW that heart that makes my heart to groan
- For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!
- Is't not enough to torture me alone,
- But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?
- Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,
- And my next self thou harder hast engross'd:
- Of him, myself, and thee, I am forsaken;
- A torment thrice threefold thus to be cross'd.
- Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,
- But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail;
- Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard;
- Thou canst not then use rigor in my gaol:
- And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,
- Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.
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CXXXIV.
- SO, now I have confess'd that he is thine,
- And I myself am mortgaged to thy will,
- Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
- Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still:
- But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
- For thou art covetous and he is kind;
- He learn'd but surety-like to write for me
- Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.
- The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
- Thou usurer, that put'st forth all to use,
- And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;
- So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
- Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:
- He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.
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CXXXV.
- WHOEVER hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'
- And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in overplus;
- More than enough am I that vex thee still,
- To thy sweet will making addition thus.
- Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
- Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
- Shall will in others seem right gracious,
- And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
- The sea all water, yet receives rain still
- And in abundance addeth to his store;
- So thou, being rich in 'Will,' add to thy 'Will'
- One will of mine, to make thy large 'Will' more.
- Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;
- Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'
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CXXXVI.
- IF thy soul cheque thee that I come so near,
- Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will,'
- And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;
- Thus far for love my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.
- 'Will' will fulfil the treasure of thy love,
- Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one.
- In things of great receipt with ease we prove
- Among a number one is reckon'd none:
- Then in the number let me pass untold,
- Though in thy stores' account I one must be;
- For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold
- That nothing me, a something sweet to thee:
- Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
- And then thou lovest me, for my name is 'Will.'
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CXXXVII.
- THOU blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
- That they behold, and see not what they see?
- They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
- Yet what the best is take the worst to be.
- If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks
- Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,
- Why of eyes' 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 world's 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 erred,
- And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.
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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 untutor'd youth,
- Unlearned in the world's 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 suppress'd.
- But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
- And wherefore say not I that I am old?
- O, love's 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 flatter'd be.
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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 lovest elsewhere, but in my sight,
- Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:
- What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might
- Is more than my o'er-press'd defense 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.
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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;
- As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
- No news but health from their physicians know;
- 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.
© 2002 Elena and Yakov Feldman