The Sonnets of William Shakespeare (Wisehouse Classics Edition). William Shakespeare

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      ‘Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.’

XV

       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.

XVI

       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 yourself, keeps yourself still,

      And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

XVII

       Who will believe my verse in time to come,

      If it were fill’d 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 touch’d earthly faces.’

      So should my papers, yellow’d with their age,

      Be scorn’d, like old men of less truth than tongue,

      And your true rights be term’d 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.

XVIII

       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 wander’st 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.

XIX

       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 long-liv’d phoenix, in her blood;

      Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,

      And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,

      To the wide world and all her fading sweets;

      But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:

      O! carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,

      Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;

      Him in thy course untainted do allow

      For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.

      Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,

      My love shall in my verse ever live young.

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