Age, I do defy thee:

O, sweet shepherd, hie thee;

For, methinks, thou stay'st too long!

VI.

Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon faded;

Pluck'd in the bud, and faded in the spring!

Bright orient pearl, alack! too timely shaded! Fair creature, kill'd too soon by death's sharp sting!

I

Like a green plum that hangs upon a tree.

And falls, through wind, before the fall should be.

weep
for thee, and yet no cause I have;
For why? thou left'st me nothing in thy will:
And yet thou left'st me more than I did crave;
For why? I craved nothing of thee still:

O, yes, dear friend! I pardon crave of thee:
Thy discontent thou didst bequeathe to me.

VII.

Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle;

Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty;
Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle;
Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty :

A lily pale, with damask die to grace her;
None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.

Her lips to mine how often hath she join'd, Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!

How many tales to please me hath she coin'd,
Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing!
Yet, in the midst of all her pure protestings,

Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were
jestings.

She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth; She burn'd out love, as soon as straw outburneth; She framed the love, and yet she foil'd the framing; She bade love last, and yet she fell a turning.

Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?

Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.

VIII.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,1
('Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument)
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows, for thee broke, deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore; but, I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gain'd, cures all disgrace in me.
My vow was breath, and breath a vapor is :
Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
Exhalest this vapor vow; in thee it is:

If broken then, it is no fault of mine:

1 This Sonnet appears in Love's Labor's Lost, vol. iii, p. 273.

If by me broke, what fool is not so wise,
To break an oath, to win a paradise?

IX.

If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? 1

O, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd! Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant

prove;

Those thoughts to me like oaks, to thee like osiers

bow'd.

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine

eyes,

Where all those pleasures live, that art can comprehend.

If knowlege be the mark, to know thee shall

suffice:

Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee commend ;

All ignorant that soul, that sees thee without

wonder;

(Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts

admire)

Thine eye Jove's lightning seems, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire.

1 This Sonnet is found in Love's Labor's Lost, vol. iii. p. 267.

Celestial as thou art, O, do not love that wrong, To sing the heavens' praise with such an earthly tongue.

X.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good:
A shining gloss, that fadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies, when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle glass, that's broken presently:

A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.

And as goods lost are seld or never found;
As faded gloss no rubbing will refresh ;
As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground;
As broken glass no cement can redress;—

So beauty, blemish'd once, for ever's lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.

XI.

Good night, good rest. Ah! neither be my share:
She bade good night, that kept my rest away;
And daff'd me1 to a cabin hang'd with care,

To descant on the doubts of my decay.

Farewell,' quoth she, and come again tomorrow: '

Fare well I could not, for I supp'd with sorrow.

1 Put me off.

Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile;
In scorn or friendship, nill I1 construe whether :
'T may be, she joy'd to jest at my exile;
'T' may be, again to make me wander thither:
'Wander!'- -a word for shadows like myself;
As take the pain, but cannot pluck the peli.

XII.

Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east!
My heart doth charge the watch; the morning rise
Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest.
Not daring trust the office of mine eyes,

While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,
And wish her lays were tuned like the lark;

For.she doth welcome daylight with her ditty,
And drives away dark, dismal-dreaming night:
The night so pack'd, I post unto my pretty :
Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight;
Sorrow changed to solace, solace mix'd with

sorrow;

For why? she sigh'd, and bade me come to

morrow.

Were I with her, the night would post too soon;
But now are minutes added to the hours:

To spite me now, each minute seems a moon;
Yet not for me, shine sun to succour flowers!

I will not.