Then lacked I matter14, that enfeebled mine.
Sonnet 87
Farewell, thou art too dear1 for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate2.
The charter of thy worth3 gives thee releasing,
My bonds4 in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of7 this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent8 back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing11,
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter14.
Sonnet 88
When thou shalt be disposed to set me light1
And place my merit in the eye of scorn2,
Upon thy side against myself I’ll fight
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn4.
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part6 I can set down a story
Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted7,
That8 thou in losing me shalt win much glory:
And I by this will be a gainer too,
For bending10 all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to myself I do,
Doing thee vantage12, double-vantage me.
Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
That for thy right myself will bear all wrong14.
Sonnet 89
Say that thou didst forsake1 me for some fault
And I will comment upon2 that offence,
Speak of my lameness and I straight will halt3,
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desirèd change6,
As I’ll myself disgrace, knowing thy will,
I will acquaintance strangle and look strange8,
Be absent from thy walks9, and in my tongue
Thy sweet belovèd name no more shall dwell,
Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong
And haply12 of our old acquaintance tell.
For thee, against myself I’ll vow debate13,
For I must ne’er love him whom thou dost hate.
Sonnet 90
Then1 hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,
Now, while the world is bent2 my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss4.
Ah do not, when my heart hath scaped5 this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe6,
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow
To linger out a purposed overthrow8.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset11 come: so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune’s might,
And other strains13 of woe, which now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.
Sonnet 91
Some glory1 in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force,
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill3,
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse,
And every humour5 hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,
But these particulars are not my measure7:
All these I better8 in one general best.
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments’ cost10,
Of more delight than hawks or horses be:
And having thee, of all men’s pride I boast —
Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take
All this away and me most wretched make.
Sonnet 92
But1 do thy worst to steal thyself away,
For term of life2 thou art assurèd mine,
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs5,
When in the least of them my life hath end6.
I see a better state to me belongs
Than that which on thy humour8 doth depend.
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie10.
O, what a happy11 title do I find,
Happy to have thy love, happy to die.
But what’s so blessèd-fair13 that fears no blot?
Thou mayst be false14, and yet I know it not.
Sonnet 93
So1 shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceivèd husband: so love’s face2
May still seem love to me, though altered new3,
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place,
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.
In many’s looks the false heart’s history
Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles8 strange,
But heaven in thy creation did decree
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell.
Whate’er thy thoughts or thy heart’s workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell.
How like Eve’s apple13 doth thy beauty grow,
If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show14.
Sonnet 94
They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show2,
Who, moving3 others, are themselves as stone,
Unmovèd, cold4, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces
And husband nature’s riches from expense6.
They are the lords and owners of their faces7,
Others but stewards8 of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself10 it only live and die,
But if that flower with base11 infection meet,
The basest12 weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things13 turn sourest by their deeds,
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds14.
Sonnet 95
How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker2 in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot3 the beauty of thy budding name.
O, in what sweets4 dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport6,
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise:
Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
O, what a mansion9 have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turns to fair that eyes can see.
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege13:
The hardest knife14 ill-used doth lose his edge.
Sonnet 96
Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness1,
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle2 sport,
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less3:
Thou mak’st faults graces that to thee resort4.
As on the finger of a thronèd queen
The basest6 jewel will be well esteemed,
So are those errors7 that in thee are seen
To truths8 translated and for true things deemed.
How many lambs might the stem wolf betray,
If like a lamb he could his l
ooks translate10?
How many gazers11 mightst thou lead away,
If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state12?
But do not so: I love thee in such sort
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report13.
Sonnet 97
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year.
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,
What old December’s bareness everywhere.
And yet this time removed5 was summer’s time,
The teeming6 autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing7 the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widowed wombs after their lords’8 decease:
Yet this abundant issue9 seemed to me
But hope of orphans and10 unfathered fruit,
For summer and his pleasures wait11 on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute —
Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.
Sonnet 98
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied2 April dressed in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That4 heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor5 the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers6 in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer’s7 story tell,
Or from their proud8 lap pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose.
They were but11 sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after12 you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still and, you away,
As14 with your shadow I with these did play.
Sonnet 99
The forward1 violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells2,
If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride3
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion4 dwells
In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly5 dyed.
The lily I condemnèd for thy hand6,
And buds of marjoram7 had stol’n thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand8,
One blushing shame, another white9 despair,
A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both
And to his robb’ry had annexed thy breath11:
But for12 his theft, in pride of all his growth,
A vengeful canker13 eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stol’n from thee15.
Sonnet 100
Where art thou, Muse1, that thou forget’st so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend’st thou thy fury3 on some worthless song,
Dark’ning thy power to lend base subjects light4?
Return, forgetful Muse, and straight5 redeem
In gentle numbers6 time so idly spent,
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays7 esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument8.
Rise, resty9 Muse, my love’s sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven10 there,
If any, be a satire to11 decay
And make Time’s spoils12 despisèd everywhere.
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
So14 thou prevent’st his scythe and crooked knife.
Sonnet 101
O truant Muse1, what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed2?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends3,
So dost thou too, and therein dignified4.
Make answer, Muse. Wilt thou not haply5 say,
‘Truth needs no colour6, with his colour fixed,
Beauty no pencil7, beauty’s truth to lay,
But best is best, if never intermixed8’?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for’t lies in thee10
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office13, Muse. I teach thee how
To make him seem long hence14, as he shows now.
Sonnet 102
My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming1:
I love not less, though less the show appear.
That love is merchandised3 whose rich esteeming
The owner’s tongue doth publish4 everywhere.
Our love was new and then but in the spring,
When I was wont6 to greet it with my lays,
As Philomel7 in summer’s front doth sing
And stops his pipe8 in growth of riper days:
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild11 music burdens every bough,
And sweets12 grown common lose their dear delight.
Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue,
Because I would not dull14 you with my song.
Sonnet 103
Alack, what poverty1 my Muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride2,
The argument all bare3 is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside.
O, blame me not, if I no more can write.
Look in your glass6, and there appears a face
That overgoes7 my blunt invention quite,
Dulling8 my lines and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then, striving to mend9,
To mar10 the subject that before was well?
For to no other pass11 my verses tend
Than of your graces12 and your gifts to tell.
And more, much more, than in my verse can sit
Your own glass shows you when you look in it.
Sonnet 104
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed2,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride4,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green8.
Ah yet doth beauty, like a dial hand9,
Steal10 from his figure and no pace perceived:
So your sweet hue11, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion12 and mine eye may be deceived.
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred13:
Ere14 you were born was beauty’s summer dead.
Sonnet 105
Let not my love be called idolatry1,
Nor my belovèd as an idol show2,
Since3 all alike my songs and praises be
To one4, of one, still such and ever so.
Kind5 is my love today, tomorrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence.
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
‘Fair9, kind and true’ is all my argument,
‘Fair, kind and true’ varying to10 other words,
And in this change is my invention spent11,
Three themes in one12, which wondrous scope affords.
Fair, kind and true have often lived alone,
Which three till now never kept seat14 in one.
Sonnet 106
When in the chronicle1 of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights2,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely4 knights,
Then in the blazon5 of sweet bea
uty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even8 such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
And, for11 they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder14, but lack tongues to praise.
Sonnet 107
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control3,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom4.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse5 endured
And the sad augurs6 mock their own presage,
Incertainties now crown themselves assured7
And peace proclaims olives of endless age8.
Now with the drops of this most balmy9 time
My love looks fresh and Death to me subscribes10,
Since, spite of him, I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults12 o’er dull and speechless tribes.
And thou in this shalt find thy monument13,
When tyrants’ crests14 and tombs of brass are spent.
Sonnet 108
What’s in the brain that ink may character1
Which hath not figured2 to thee my true spirit?
What’s new to speak, what now to register3,
That may express my love or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine
I must each day say o’er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallowed8 thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love’s fresh case9
Weighs not10 the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place11,
But makes antiquity12 for aye his page,
Finding the first conceit13 of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would show it14 dead.
The Sonnets and Other Poems Page 19