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The Sonnets of William Shakespeare
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CXLI.
- In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
- For they in thee a thousand errors note;
- But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
- Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;
- Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's 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 unsway'd the likeness of a man,
- Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be:
- Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
- That she that makes me sin awards me pain.
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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 profaned their scarlet ornaments
- And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,
- Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.
- Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovest 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!
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CXLIII.
- Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch
- One of her feather'd creatures broke away,
- Sets down her babe and makes an 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 infant's discontent;
- So runn'st 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 mother's part, kiss me, be kind:
- So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'
- If thou turn back, and my loud crying still.
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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 colour'd 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 turn'd fiend
- Suspect I may, but not directly tell;
- But being both from me, both to each friend,
- I guess one angel in another's hell:
- Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
- Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
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CXLV.
- Those lips that Love's own hand did make
- Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'
- To me that languish'd for her sake;
- But when she saw my woeful state,
- Straight in her heart did mercy come,
- Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
- Was used in giving gentle doom,
- And taught it thus anew to greet:
- 'I hate' she alter'd with an end,
- That follow'd it as gentle day
- Doth follow night, who like a fiend
- From heaven to hell is flown away;
- 'I hate' from hate away she threw,
- And saved my life, saying 'not you.'
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CXLVI.
- POOR soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
- Fool'd by these rebel powers that thee 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 body's end?
- Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's 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 shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
- And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
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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 madmen's are,
- At random from the truth vainly express'd;
- For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
- Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
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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
- Love's eye is not so true as all men's 'No.'
- How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
- That is so vex'd 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 keep'st me blind,
- Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
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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 myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?
- Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
- On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?
- Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend
- Revenge upon myself with present moan?
- What merit do I in myself 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 lovest, and I am blind.
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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 warrantize 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 raised love in me,
- More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
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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 body's treason;
- My soul doth tell my body that he may
- Triumph in love; flesh stays no father 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 'love' for whose dear love I rise and fall.
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CLII.
- IN loving thee thou know'st 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 oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
- When I break twenty? I am perjured 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 perjured I,
- To swear against the truth so foul a lie!
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CLIII.
- CUPID laid by his brand, and fell asleep:
- A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
- And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
- In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
- Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love
- A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
- And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
- Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
- But at my mistress' eye Love's 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 distemper'd guest,
- But found no cure: the bath for my help lies
- Where Cupid got new fire--my mistress' eyes.
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CLIV.
- THE little Love-god lying once asleep
- Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
- Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep
- Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
- The fairest votary took up that fire
- Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;
- And so the general of hot desire
- Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd.
- This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
- Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
- Growing a bath and healthful remedy
- For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,
- Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,
- Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.
© 2002 Elena and Yakov Feldman