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O brave new world That has such people in’t!
our milk Will relish of the pasture,
Our hands advanc’d before our hearts,
I am not Against your faith, yet I continue mine.
This world’s a city full of straying streets, And death’s the market-place, where each one meets.
“O, pity,” gan she cry, “flint-hearted boy, ’Tis but a kiss I beg, why art thou coy?
Were I hard-favor’d, foul, or wrinkled old, Ill-nurtur’d, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice, O’erworn, despised, rheumatic, and cold, Thick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking juice, Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee, But having no defects, why dost abhor me?
Upon the earth’s increase why shouldst thou feed, Unless the earth with thy increase be fed? By law of nature thou art bound to breed, That thine may live, when thou thyself art dead; And so in spite of death thou dost survive, In that thy likeness still is left alive.”
Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn, To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn!
The colt that’s back’d and burthen’d being young, Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.
Foul cank’ring rust the hidden treasure frets, But gold that’s put to use more gold begets.”
Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies; Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.
Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide, And with the wind in greater fury fret. The petty streams that pay a daily debt To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls’ haste Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.”
The flesh being proud, Desire doth fight with Grace, For there it revels, and when that decays, The guilty rebel for remission prays.
The aged man that coffers up his gold Is plagu’d with cramps and gouts and painful fits, And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold, But like still-pining Tantalus he sits, And useless barns the harvest of his wits; Having no other pleasure of his gain But torment that it cannot cure his pain. So then he hath it when he cannot use it, And leaves it to be mast’red by his young, Who in their pride do presently abuse it; Their father was too weak, and they too strong, To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long. The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours Even in the moment that we call them
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Time’s glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light, To stamp the seal of time in aged things, To wake the morn, and sentinel the night, To wrong the wronger till he render right,
The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire, And unperceiv’d fly with the filth away, But if the like the snow-white swan desire, The stain upon his silver down will stay.
Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light, For day hath nought to do what’s done by night.”
And that deep torture may be call’d a hell, When more is felt than one hath power to tell.
To see sad sights moves more than hear them told, For then the eye interprets to the ear The heavy motion that it doth behold, When every part a part of woe doth bear. ’Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear. Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords, And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.
But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie Imagine every eye beholds their blame, For Lucrece thought he blush’d to see her shame,
Had doting Priam check’d his son’s desire, Troy had been bright with fame, and not with fire.”
It easeth some, though none it ever cured, To think their dolor others have endured.
This were to be new made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
But if thou live rememb’red not to be, Die single, and thine image dies with thee.
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 touch’d earthly faces.”
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 dimm’d, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d: 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
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O, learn to read what silent love hath writ: To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I lov’d her dearly; That she hath thee is of my wailing chief, A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
I sense gender change .
All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
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.
So all my best is dressing old words new, Spending again what is already spent:
love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds,
Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman color’d ill.
Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.
