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So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived:

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:

Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

CVI

When in the chronicle of wasted time 1 see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rime In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, 1 see their antique pen would have expressed

Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they looked but with divining

eyes,

They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

For we, which now behold these present days,

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

CIX

O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.

As easy might I from myself depart
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth
lie:

That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time ex-
changed,

So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature

reigned

All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stained, To leave for nothing all thy sum of good; For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

CXVI

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:
O, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though 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 proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

CXXX

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing

sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

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Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,

I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honoring thee
As giving it a hope that there

It could not withered be;
But thou thereon didst only breathe
And sent'st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

1

SIMPLEX MUNDITIIS

Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th' adulteries of art;

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

SONG

THAT WOMEN ARE BUT MEN'S SHADOWS.
Follow a shadow, it still flies you,
Seem to fly it, it will pursue;

So court a mistress, she denies you,
Let her alone, she will court you.
Say, are not women truly then
Styled but the shadows of us men?

At morn and even, shades are longest;
At noon, they are short or none;
Some men at weakest, they are strongest,
But grant us perfect, they're not known.
Say, are not women truly then
Styled but the shadows of us men?

' always

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Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley;

Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely

melancholy.

DRINK TO-DAY, AND DROWN ALL SORROW

Drink to-day, and drown all sorrow,
You shall perhaps not do it to-morrow:
Best, while you have it, use your breath;
There is no drinking after death.

Wine works the heart up, wakes the wit,
There is no cure 'gainst age but it:
It helps the head-ache, cough, and tisic,1
And is for all diseases physic.

Then let us swill, boys, for our health;
Who drinks well, loves the commonwealth.
And he that will to bed go sober
Falls with the leaf still in October.

MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563-1631)

SONNET LXI

Since there's no help, come let us kiss

and part,

Nay I have done, you get no more of me; And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,

That thus so cleanly I myself can free;
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.

Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,

When his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,

When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And Innocence is closing up his eyes: 'consumptive cough

Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over,

From death to life thou might'st him yet

recover.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND

(1585-1649)

TO A NIGHTINGALE

Sweet bird! that sing'st away the early hours

Of winters past, or coming, void of care; Well pleased with delights which present

are,

Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweetsmelling flowers:

To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers,

Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare, And what dear gifts on thee He did not

spare,

A stain to human sense in sin that low'rs. What soul can be so sick which by thy songs

(Attir'd in sweetness) sweetly is not driven

Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,

And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven?

Sweet artless songster! thou my mind dost raise

To airs of spheres-yes, and to angels' lays.

THE BOOK OF THE WORLD

Of this fair volume which we World do

name

If we the sheets and leaves could turn

with care,

Of Him who it corrects, and did it frame, We clear might read the art and wisdom

rare:

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