The Sonnets | Page 4

lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,?Without this folly, age, and cold decay,?If all were minded so, the times should cease,?And threescore year would make the world away:?Let those whom nature hath not made for store,?Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:?Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;?Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:?She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,?Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
12?When I do count the clock that tells the time,?And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,?When I behold the violet past prime,?And sable curls all silvered o'er with white:?When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,?Which erst from heat did canopy the herd?And summer's green all girded up in sheaves?Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:?Then of thy beauty do I question make?That thou among the wastes of time must go,?Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,?And die as fast as they see others grow,?And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence?Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.
13?O that you were your self, but love you are?No longer yours, than you your self here live,?Against this coming end you should prepare,?And your sweet semblance to some other give.?So should that beauty which you hold in lease?Find no determination, then you were?Your self again after your self's decease,?When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.?Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,?Which husbandry in honour might uphold,?Against the stormy gusts of winter's day?And barren rage of death's eternal cold??O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,?You had a father, let your son say so.
14?Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,?And yet methinks I have astronomy,?But not to tell of good, or evil luck,?Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality,?Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;?Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,?Or say with princes if it shall go well?By oft predict that I in heaven find.?But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,?And constant stars in them I read such art?As truth and beauty shall together thrive?If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:?Or else of thee this I prognosticate,?Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
15?When I consider every thing that grows?Holds in perfection but a little moment.?That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows?Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.?When I perceive that men as plants increase,?Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:?Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,?And wear their brave state out of memory.?Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,?Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,?Where wasteful time debateth with decay?To change your day of youth to sullied night,?And all in war with Time for love of you,?As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
16?But wherefore do not you a mightier way?Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time??And fortify your self in your decay?With means more blessed than my barren rhyme??Now stand you on the top of happy hours,?And many maiden gardens yet unset,?With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,?Much liker than your painted counterfeit:?So should the lines of life that life repair?Which this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen?Neither in inward worth nor outward fair?Can make you live your self in eyes of men.?To give away your self, keeps your self still,?And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.
17?Who will believe my verse in time to come?If it were filled with your most high deserts??Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb?Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:?If I could write the beauty of your eyes,?And in fresh numbers number all your graces,?The age to come would say this poet lies,?Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.?So should my papers (yellowed with their age)?Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,?And your true rights be termed a poet's rage,?And stretched metre of an antique song.?But were some child of yours alive that time,?You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.
18?Shall I compare thee to a summer's day??Thou art more lovely and more temperate:?Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,?And summer's lease hath all too short a date:?Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,?And often is his gold complexion dimmed,?And every fair from fair sometime declines,?By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:?But thy eternal summer shall not fade,?Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,?Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,?When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,?So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,?So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
19?Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,?And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,?Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,?And burn the