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The Sonnets of William Shakespeare
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XXI.
- SO is it not with me as with that Muse
- Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,
- Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
- And every fair with his fair doth rehearse
- Making a couplement of proud compare,
- With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
- With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare
- That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
- O' let me, true in love, but truly write,
- And then believe me, my love is as fair
- As any mother's child, though not so bright
- As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:
- Let them say more than like of hearsay well;
- I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
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XXII.
- MY glass shall not persuade me I am old,
- So long as youth and thou are of one date;
- But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
- Then look I death my days should expiate.
- For all that beauty that doth cover thee
- Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
- Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
- How can I then be elder than thou art?
- O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
- As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
- Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
- As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
- Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
- Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again.
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XXIII.
- AS an unperfect actor on the stage
- Who with his fear is put besides his part,
- Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
- Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart.
- So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
- The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
- And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
- O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might.
- O, let my books be then the eloquence
- And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
- Who plead for love and look for recompense
- More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
- O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
- To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
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XXIV.
- MINE eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
- Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
- My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
- And perspective it is the painter's art.
- For through the painter must you see his skill,
- To find where your true image pictured lies;
- Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
- That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
- Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
- Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
- Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
- Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
- Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;
- They draw but what they see, know not the heart.
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XXV.
- LET those who are in favour with their stars
- Of public honour and proud titles boast,
- Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
- Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
- Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
- But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
- And in themselves their pride lies buried,
- For at a frown they in their glory die.
- The painful warrior famoused for fight,
- After a thousand victories once foil'd,
- Is from the book of honour razed quite,
- And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:
- Then happy I, that love and am beloved
- Where I may not remove nor be removed.
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XXVI.
- LORD of my love, to whom in vassalage
- Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
- To thee I send this written embassage,
- To witness duty, not to show my wit:
- Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
- May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
- But that I hope some good conceit of thine
- In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;
- Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
- Points on me graciously with fair aspect
- And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,
- To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
- Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
- Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me.
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XXVII.
- WEARY with toil, I haste me to my bed,
- The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
- But then begins a journey in my head,
- To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
- For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
- Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
- And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
- Looking on darkness which the blind do see
- Save that my soul's imaginary sight
- Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
- Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
- Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
- Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
- For thee and for myself no quiet find.
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XXVIII
- HOW can I then return in happy plight,
- That am debarr'd the benefit of rest?
- When day's oppression is not eased by night,
- But day by night, and night by day, oppress'd?
- And each, though enemies to either's reign,
- Do in consent shake hands to torture me;
- The one by toil, the other to complain
- How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
- I tell the day, to please them thou art bright
- And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
- So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,
- When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.
- But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer
- And night doth nightly make grief's strength seem stronger.
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XXIX.
- WHEN, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
- I all alone beweep my outcast state
- And trouble deal heaven with my bootless cries
- And look upon myself and curse my fate,
- Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
- Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
- Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
- With what I most enjoy contented least;
- Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
- Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
- Like to the lark at break of day arising
- From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
- For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
- That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
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XXX.
- WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought
- I summon up remembrance of things past,
- I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
- And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
- Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
- For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
- And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
- And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
- Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
- And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
- The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
- Which I new pay as if not paid before.
- But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
- All losses are restored and sorrows end.
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XXXI.
- THY bosom is endeared with all hearts,
- 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.
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XXXII.
- IF thou survive my well-contented day,
- When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
- And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
- These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
- Compare them with the bettering of the time,
- And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
- Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
- Exceeded by the height of happier men.
- O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
- 'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,
- A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
- To march in ranks of better equipage:
- But since he died and poets better prove,
- Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'
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XXXIII.
- FULL many a glorious morning have I seen
- Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
- Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
- Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
- Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
- With ugly rack on his celestial face,
- And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
- Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
- Even so my sun one early morn did shine
- With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
- But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
- The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
- Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
- Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.
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XXXIV.
- WHY didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
- And make me travel forth without my cloak,
- To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
- Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
- 'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
- To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
- For no man well of such a salve can speak
- That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:
- Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
- Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
- The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
- To him that bears the strong offence's cross.
- Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
- And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.
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XXXV.
- NO more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
- Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
- Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
- And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
- All men make faults, and even I in this,
- Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
- Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
- Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
- For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense--
- Thy adverse party is thy advocate--
- And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
- Such civil war is in my love and hate
- That I an accessary needs must be
- To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
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XXXVI.
- LET me confess that we two must be twain,
- Although our undivided loves are one:
- So shall those blots that do with me remain
- Without thy help by me be borne alone.
- In our two loves there is but one respect,
- Though in our lives a separable spite,
- Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
- Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
- I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
- Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
- Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
- Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
- But do not so; I love thee in such sort
- As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
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XXXVII.
- AS a decrepit father takes delight
- To see his active child do deeds of youth,
- So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,
- Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
- For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
- Or any of these all, or all, or more,
- Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,
- I make my love engrafted to this store:
- So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
- Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
- That I in thy abundance am sufficed
- And by a part of all thy glory live.
- Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee:
- This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
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XXXVIII.
- HOW can my Muse want subject to invent,
- While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse
- Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
- For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
- O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me
- Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
- For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
- When thou thyself dost give invention light?
- Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
- Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;
- And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
- Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
- If my slight Muse do please these curious days,
- The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
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XXXIX.
- O, HOW thy worth with manners may I sing,
- When thou art all the better part of me?
- What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
- And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee?
- Even for this let us divided live,
- And our dear love lose name of single one,
- That by this separation I may give
- That due to thee which thou deservest alone.
- O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove,
- Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave
- To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
- Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,
- And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
- By praising him here who doth hence remain!
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XL.
- TAKE all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
- What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
- No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
- All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
- Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
- I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
- But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest
- By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
- I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
- Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
- And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief
- To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.
- Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
- Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.
© 2002 Elena and Yakov Feldman