- To the Reader of these Sonnets
- Into these Loves who but for Passion looks,
- At this first sight here let him lay them by
- And seek elsewhere, in turning other books,
- Which better may his labor satisfy.
- No far-fetch'd sigh shall ever wound my breast,
- Love from mine eye a tear shall never wring,
- Nor in Ah me's my whining sonnets drest;
- A libertine, fantasticly I sing.
- My verse is the true image of my mind,
- Ever in motion, still desiring change,
- And as thus to variety inclin'd,
- So in all humours sportively I range.
- My Muse is rightly of the English strain,
- That cannot long one fashion entertain.
- I
- Like an advent'rous seafarer am I,
- Who hath some long and dang'rous voyage been,
- And, call'd to tell of his discovery,
- How far he sail'd, what countries he had seen;
- Proceeding from the port whence he put forth,
- Shows by his compass how his course he steer'd,
- When East, when West, when South, and when by North,
- As how the Pole to every place was rear'd,
- What capes he doubled, of what Continent,
- The gulfs and straits that strangely he had past,
- Where most becalm'd, where with foul weather spent,
- And on what rocks in peril to be cast:
- Thus in my love, Time calls me to relate
- My tedious travels and oft-varying fate.
- II
- My heart was slain, and none but you and I;
- Who should I think the murther should commit,
- Since but yourself there was no creature by,
- But only I, guiltless of murth'ring it?
- It slew itself; the verdict on the view
- Doth quit the dead, and me not accessary.
- Well, well, I fear it will be prov'd by you,
- The evidence so great a proof doth carry.
- But O, see, see, we need inquire no further:
- Upon your lips the scarlet drops are found,
- And in your eye the boy that did the murther;
- Your cheeks yet pale, since first he gave the wound.
- By this I see, however things be past,
- Yet Heaven will still have murther out at last.
- III
- Taking my pen, with words to cast my woe,
- Duly to count the sum of all my cares,
- I find my griefs innumerable grow,
- The reckonings rise to millions of despairs;
- And thus dividing of my fatal hours,
- The payments of my love I read and cross,
- Subtracting, set my sweets unto my sours,
- My joy's arrearage leads me to my loss;
- And thus mine eye's a debtor to thine eye,
- Which by extortion gaineth all their looks;
- My heart hath paid such grievous usury
- That all their wealth lies in thy beauty's books,
- And all is thine which hath been due to me,
- And I a bankrupt, quite undone by thee.
- IV
- Bright star of beauty, on whose eyelids sit
- A thousand nymph-like and enamour'd Graces,
- The Goddesses of Memory and Wit,
- Which there in order take their several places;
- In whose dear bosom sweet delicious Love
- Lays down his quiver, which he once did bear,
- Since he that blessed Paradise did prove,
- And leaves his mother's lap to sport him there.
- Let others strive to entertain with words;
- My soul is of a braver metal made;
- I hold that vile which vulgar wit affords;
- In me's that faith which Time cannot invade.
- Let what I praise be still made good by you;
- Be you most worthy, whilst I am most true.
- V
- Nothing but "No," and "Aye," and "Aye," and "No"?
- How falls it out so strangely you reply?
- I tell ye, Fair, I'll not be answer'd so,
- With this affirming "No," denying "Aye."
- I say, "I love," you slightly answer "Aye";
- I say, "You love," you pule me out a "No";
- I say, "I die," you echo me an "Aye";
- "Save me," I cry, you sigh me out a "No";
- Must woe and I have nought but "No" and "Aye"?
- No I am I, if I no more can have;
- Answer no more, with silence make reply,
- And let me take myself what I do crave.
- Let "No" and "Aye" with I and you be so;
- Then answer "No," and "Aye," and "Aye" and "No."
- VI
- How many paltry, foolish, painted things,
- That now is coaches trouble every street,
- Shall be forgotten, whom no Poet sings,
- Ere they be well wrapt in their winding-sheet.
- Where I to thee eternity shall give,
- When nothing else remaineth of these days,
- And Queens hereafter shall be glad to live
- Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise.
- Virgins and matrons, reading these my rhymes,
- Shall be so much delighted with thy story
- That they shall grieve they liv'd not in these times,
- To have seen thee, their sex's only glory.
- So shalt thou fly above the vulgar throng,
- Still to survive in my immortal song.
- VII
- Love in a humor play'd the prodigal
- And bade my Senses to a solemn feast;
- Yet, more to grace the company withal,
- Invites my Heart to be the chiefest guest.
- No other drink would serve this glutton's turn
- But precious tears distilling from mine eyne,
- Which with my sighs this epicure doth burn,
- Quaffing carouses in this costly wine;
- Where, in his cups o'ercome with foul excess,
- Straightways he plays a swaggering ruffian's part,
- And at the banquet in his drunkenness
- Slew his dear friend, my kind and truest Heart.
- A gentle warning, friends, thus may you see
- What 'tis to keep a drunkard company.
- VIII
- There's nothing grieves me, but that Age should haste,
- That in my days I may not see thee old,
- That where those two clear sparkling eyes are plac'd
- Only two loop-holes then I might behold;
- That lovely, arched, ivory, polish'd brow
- Defac'd with wrinkles that I might but see;
- Thy dainty hair, so curl'd and crisped now,
- Like grizzled moss upon some aged tree;
- Thy cheek, now flush with roses, sunk and lean;
- Thy lips with age as any wafer thin;
- Thy pearly teeth out of thy head so clean
- That, when thou feed'st, thy nose shall touch thy chin.
- These lines that now thou scorn'st, which should delight thee,
- Then would I make thee read but to despite thee.
- IX
- As other men, so I myself do muse
- Why in this sort I wrest invention so,
- And why these giddy metaphors I use,
- Leaving the path the greater part do go.
- I will resolve you: I am lunatic,
- And ever this in madmen you shall find,
- What they last thought of when the brain grew sick
- In most distraction they keep that in mind.
- Thus talking idly in this bedlam fit,
- Reason and I, you must conceive, are twain;
- "Tis nine years now since first I lost my wit;
- Bear with me then, though troubled be my brain.
- With diet and correction men distraught
- (Not too far past) may to their wits be brought.
- X
- To nothing fitter can I thee compare
- Than to the son of some rich penny-father,
- Who, having now brought on his end with care,
- Leaves to his son all he had heap'd together;
- This new rich novice, lavish of his chest,
- To one man gives, doth on another spend,
- Then here he riots, yet among the rest
- Haps to lend some to one true honest friend.
- Thy gifts thou in obscurity dost waste,
- False friends thy kindness, born but to deceive thee,
- Thy love that is on the unworthy plac'd,
- Time hath thy beauty, which with age will leave thee;
- Only that little which to me was lent
- I give thee back, when all the rest is spent.
- XI
- You not alone, when you are still alone,
- O God, from you that I could private be.
- Since you one were, I never since was one;
- Since you in me, my self since out of me,
- Transported from my self into your being;
- Though either distant, present yet to either,
- Senseless with too much joy, each other seeing,
- And only absent when we are together.
- Give me my self and take your self again,
- Devise some means but how I may forsake you;
- So much is mine that doth with you remain,
- That, taking what is mine, with me I take you;
- You do bewitch me; O, that I could fly
- From my self you, or from your own self I.
- XII
- To the Soul
- That learned Father, who so firmly proves
- The Soul of man immortal and divine,
- And doth the several offices define:
- Anima - Gives her that name, as she the Body moves;
- Amor - Then is she Love, embracing charity;
- Animus - Moving a Will in us, it is the Mind
- Mens - Retaining knowledge, still the same in kind;
- Memoria - As intellectual, it is Memory;
- Ratio - In judging, Reason only is her name;
- Sensus - In speedy apprehension, it is Sense;
- Conscientia - In right or wrong, they call her Conscience;
- Spiritus - The Spirit, when it to Godward doth inflame.
- These of the Soul the several functions be,
- Which my Heart, lighten'd by thy love, doth see.
- XIII
- To the Shadow
- Letters and lines we see are soon defac'd,
- Metals do waste and fret with canker's rust,
- The diamond shall once consume to dust,
- And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac'd;
- Paper and ink can paint but naked words,
- To write with blood of force offends the sight;
- And if with tears I find them all too light,
- And sighs and signs a silly hope affotds,
- O sweetest shadow, how thou serv'st my turn,
- Which still shalt be, as long as there is sun,
- Nor, whilst the world is, never shalt be done,
- Whilst moon shall shine or any fire shall burn;
- That everything whence shadow doth proceed
- May in my shadow my love's story read.
- XIV
- If he from Heav'n that filch'd that living fire
- Condemn'd by Jove to endless torment be,
- I greatly marvel how you still go free
- That far beyond Prometheus did aspire.
- The fire he stole, although of heav'nly kind,
- Which from above he craftily did take,
- Of lifeless clods us living men to make,
- He did bestow in temper of the mind;
- But you broke into Heav'n's immortal store,
- Where Virtue, Honor, Wit, and Beauty lay,
- Which taking thence you have escap'd away,
- Yet stand as free as e'er you did before;
- Yet old Prometheus punish'd for his rape.
- Thus poor thieves suffer when the greater 'scape.
- XV
- His Remedy for Love
- Since to obtain thee nothing will be stead,
- I have a med'cine that shall cure my love,
- The powder of her heart dried, when she is dead,
- That gold nor honor ne'er had power to move,
- Mixt with her tears, that ne'er her true-love crost
- Nor at fifteen ne'er long'd to be a bride,
- Boil'd with her sighs in giving up the ghost,
- That for her late deceased husband died;
- Into the same then let a woman breathe,
- That, being chid, did never word reply,
- With one thrice-married's prayers, that did bequeath
- A legacy to stale virginity.
- If this receipt have not the power to win me,
- Little I'll say, but think the Devil's in me.
- XVI
- An Allusion to the Phoenix
- 'Mongst all the creatures in this spacious round
- Of the birds' kind, the Phoenix is alone,
- Which best by you of living things is known;
- None like to that, none like to you is found.
- Your beauty is the hot and splend'rous sun,
- The precious spices be your chaste desire,
- Which being kindled by that heav'nly fire,
- Your life so like the Phoenix's begun;
- Yourself thus burned in that sacred flame,
- With so rare sweetness all the heav'ns perfuming,
- Again increasing as you are consuming,
- Only by dying born the very same;
- And, wing'd by fame, you to the stars ascend,
- So you of time shall live beyond the end.
- XVII
- To Time
- Stay, speedy Time, behold, before thou pass,
- From age to age what thou hast sought to see,
- One in whom all the excellencies be,
- In whom Heav'n looks itself as in a glass.
- Time, look thyself in this tralucent glass,
- And thy youth past in this pure mirror see,
- As the world's beauty in his infancy,
- What is was then, and thou before it was.
- Pass on, and to posterity tell this,
- Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been;
- Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen
- In perfect human shape all heav'nly bliss,
- And bid them mourn, nay more, despair with thee,
- That she is gone, her like again to see.
- XVIII
- To the Celestial Numbers
- To this our world, to Learning, and to Heav'n,
- Three Nines there are, to every one a Nine,
- One number of the Earth, the other both divine;
- One woman now makes three odd numbers ev'n.
- Nine Orders first of Angels be in Heav'n,
- Nine Muses do with Learning still frequent:
- These with the Gods are ever resident;
- Nine Worthy Women to the world were giv'n.
- My Worthy One to these Nine Worthies addeth,
- And my fair Muse one Muse unto the Nine,
- And my good Angel, in my soul divine,
- With one more Order these Nine Orders gladdeth;
- My Muse, my Worthy, and my Angel then
- Makes every One of these three Nines a Ten.
- XIX
- To Humor
- You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why?
- There was a time you told me that you would;
- But now again you will the same deny,
- If it might please you, would to God you could.
- What, will you hate? Nay, that you will not, neither.
- Nor love nor hate, how then? What will you do?
- What, will you keep a mean then betwixt either,
- Or will you love me and yet hate me, too?
- Yet serves this not. What next? What other shift?
- You will, and will not; what a coil is here.
- I see your craft, now I perceive your drift,
- And all this while I was mistaken there;
- Your love and hate is this, I now do prove you:
- You love in hate, by hate to make me love you.
- XX
- An evil spirit, your beauty haunts me still,
- Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest,
- Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill,
- Nor gives me once but one poor minute's rest;
- In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake,
- And when by means to drive it out I try,
- With greater torments then it me doth take,
- And tortures me in most extremity;
- Before my face it lays down my despairs,
- And hastes me on unto a sudden death,
- Now tempting me to drown myself in tears,
- And then in sighing to give up my breath.
- Thus am I still provok'd to every evil
- By this good wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil.
Continued...