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When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry ;

Nor Mars's sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.

'Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity,

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room, Even in the eyes of all posterity,

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So till the judgment, that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT.

So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare ;
Since seldom coming, in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carconet.

So is the time that keeps you, as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe, which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special blest,
By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.

Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had to triumph, being lack'd to hope.

PATIENS ARMATUS.

?

Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
My heavy eye-lids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows, like to thee do mock my sight!
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee,
So far from home, into my deeds to pry
To find out shames, and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?
O no, thy love, tho' much, is not so great ;
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;
Mine own true love, that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake.

For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.

A VALEDICTION.

No longer mourn for me when I am dead;
When you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world, that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dweli.
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then, should make you woe.
O! if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay;
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay:
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me, after I am gone.
O lest the world should task you to recite
What merit liv'd in me, that you should love;
After my death (dear love !) forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove :
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do for me now than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I,
Than niggard truth would willingly impart.
O lest yoor true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue ;
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you;
For I'm asham'd by that which I bring forth;
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

But be contented, when that fell arrest,
Without all bail, shall carry me away;
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee.

The earth can have but earth, which is his due ;
My sprite is thine, the better part of me.
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead;
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base, of thee to be remembered.

The worth of that is that which it contains ;
And that is this, and this with thee remains.

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NIL MAGNIS INVIDIA.

That thou art blam'd, shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair :
The ornament of beauty is suspect ?8

A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air,
So thou be good, slander doth but approve
Their worth be greater, being woo'd of time;
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast past by the ambush of young days,
Either not assail'd, or victor, being charg'd;
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy evermore enlarg'd;

If some suspect of ill, mask not thy show,
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts should'st owe.

LOVE-SICK.

O how I faint, when I of you do write !
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name;
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-ty'd, speaking of your fame
But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear;
My saucy bark (inferior far to his)

On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or (being wreck'd) I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride.

Then if he thrive, and I be cast away,
The worst was this, my love was my decay.

Or shall I live your epitaph to make?
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten?
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Altho' in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Tho' I (once gone) to all the world must die ;
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie :
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;

[8] Suspicion or slander is the constant attendant on beauty, and adds new lustre to it. ANON.

And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead:
You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)
Where breath most breathes,ev'n in the mouths of men.

THE PICTURE OF TRUE LOVE.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken ;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, altho' his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, tho' rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov'd,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

IN PRAISE OF HIS LOVE.

I grant thou wert not marry'd to my muse,
And therefore may'st thou without attaint o'erlook
The dedicated words which writers use

Of their fair subject, blessing every book:
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue;
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;
And therefore art enforc'd to seek anew
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days:
And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd
What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou, truly fair, wert truly sympathiz'd,
In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.
And their gross painting might be better us'd,
Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.'

I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to you fair no painting set:
I found (or thought I found) you did exceed
The barren tender of a poet's debt:
And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you yourself being extant, well might show,
How far a modern quill doth come too short,

Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
This silence of my sin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory, being dumb;
For I impair not beauty, being mute,

When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,
Than both your poets can in praise devise.
Who is it, that says most, which can say more
Than this rich praise, that you alone are you?
In whose confine immured is the store,

Which should example where your equal grew?
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,
That to his subject lends not some small glory :
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies his story.
Let him but copy what in you is writ,

Not making worse what nature made so clear;
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making him still admired every where.

You to your beauteous blessing add a curse,

Being fond of praise, which makes your praises worse.

My tongue-ty'd muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise, richly compil'd,
Reserve their character with golden quill,

And precious phrase by all the muses fill'd.9

I think good thoughts, while others write good words,
And, like unletter'd clerk, still cry Amen
To every hymn that able spirit affords,

In polish'd form of well refined pen,

Hearing you praised, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,

And to the most of praise add something more ;
But that is in my thought, whose love to you

(Tho' words come hindmost) holds his ranks before :
Then others, for the breath of words, respect;
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

A RESIGNATION.

Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of (all-too-precious) you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain rehearse, *
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew !
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write

[9] Read fil'd i. e. polished. ANON.

[i] For Rehearse, read inherse. STEEVENS.

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