What though she strive to try her strength
And ban32 and brawl, and say thee nay,
Her feeble force will yield at length,
When craft hath taught her thus to say:
'Had women been so strong as men,
In faith, you had not had it then.'
The wiles and guiles that women work,
Dissembled with an outward show,
The tricks and toys39 that in them lurk,
The cock40 that treads them shall not know.
Have you not heard it said full oft,
'A woman's "nay" doth stand for naught42'?
Think women still to strive with men,
To sin and never for to saint43:
There45 is no heaven, be holy then,
When time with age shall them attaint46.
Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.
But, soft49, enough, too much, I fear,
Lest that my mistress hear my song:
She will not stick51 to round me on the ear,
To teach my tongue to be so long,
Yet will she blush, here be it said,
To hear her secrets so bewrayed54.
[19]
Live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove2
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
And all the craggy mountains yield.
There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, by whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals8.
There will I make thee a bed of roses,
With a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers and a kirtle11
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle12.
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Then live with me and be my love.
LOVE'S ANSWER17
If that the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
[20]
As it fell upon a day
In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles4 made,
Beasts did leap and birds did sing,
Trees did grow and plants did spring,
Every thing did banish moan7,
Save the nightingale alone:
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast up till a thorn10,
And there sung the dolefull'st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity:
'Fie, fie, fie,' now would she cry,
'Tereu, Tereu14!' by and by:
That to hear her so complain15,
Scarce I could from tears refrain,
For her griefs so lively17 shown
Made me think upon mine own.
Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in vain,
None takes pity on thy pain:
Senseless trees they cannot hear thee,
Ruthless bears they will not cheer thee,
King Pandion23 he is dead,
All thy friends are lapped in lead24,
All thy fellow birds do sing,
Careless of thy sorrowing.
Whilst as fickle Fortune smiled,
Thou and I were both beguiled28.
Every one that flatters thee
Is no friend in misery.
Words are easy like the wind,
Faithful friends are hard to find:
Every man will be thy friend
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend,
But if store of crowns35 be scant,
No man will supply thy want36.
If that one be prodigal37,
Bountiful they will him call,
And with such-like flattering,
'Pity but he were a king.'40
If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will entice.
If to women he be bent43,
They have at commandement44.
But if Fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown:
They that fawned on him before
Use his company no more.
He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need:
If thou sorrow he will weep,
If thou wake52 he cannot sleep,
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flatt'ring foe.
"TO THE QUEEN"
As the dial1 hand tells o'er
The same hours it had before,
Still beginning in the ending,
Circular account still lending,
So, most mighty Queen we pray,
Like the dial day by day
You may lead the seasons on,
Making new when old are gone,
That the babe which now is young
And hath yet no use of tongue
Many a Shrovetide11 here may bow
To that empress I do now,
That the children of these lords,
Sitting at your council boards14,
May be grave and aged seen
Of her that was their fathers' queen.
Once I wish this wish again,
Heaven subscribe it with 'Amen'.
"LET THE BIRD OF
LOUDEST LAY"
LET the bird of loudest1 lay
On the sole Arabian tree
Herald sad and trumpet3 be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.
But thou shrieking harbinger5,
Foul precurrer6 of the fiend,
Augur7 of the fever's end,
To this troop come thou not near.
From this session9 interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing10,
Save11 the eagle, feathered king:
Keep the obsequy12 so strict.
Let the priest in surplice13 white,
That defunctive14 music can,
Be the death-divining15 swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right16.
And thou treble-dated17 crow,
That thy sable gender18 mak'st
With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,
'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the anthem21 doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix23 and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame24 from hence.
So they loved, as25 love in twain
Had the essence but in one26,
Two distincts27, division none:
Number28 there in love was slain.
Hearts remote29, yet not asunder;
Distance30 and no space was seen
'Twixt this turtle and his queen:
But in them it were a wonder32.
So between them love did shine
That the turtle saw his right34
Flaming in the phoenix' sight35:
Either was the other's mine36.
Property37 was thus appalled
That the self was not the same38:
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was called39.
Reason, in itself confounded41,
Saw division grow together42,
To themselves yet either neither43,
Simple44 were so well compounded,
That it45 cried, 'How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant46 one!
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain48.'
Whereupon it made this threne49
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes51 and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene.
/>
THRENOS52
Beauty, truth and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclosed in cinders lie.
Death is now the phoenix' nest,
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,
Leaving no posterity59.
'Twas not their infirmity60,
It was married chastity.
Truth may seem but cannot be,
Beauty brag but 'tis not she,
Truth and be64auty buried be.
To this urn let those repair65
That are either true or fair,
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
William Shake-speare
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
TO THE ONLY BEGETTER OF
THESE INSUING SONNETS
MR. W. H. ALL HAPPINESS
AND THAT ETERNITY
PROMISED
BY
OUR EVER-LIVING POET
WISHETH
THE WELL-WISHING
ADVENTURER IN
SETTING
FORTH
T. T.
Sonnet 1
FROM fairest creatures we desire increase1,
That2 thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender4 heir might bear his memory:
But thou5, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel6,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh9 ornament
And only herald10 to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud11 buriest thy content
And, tender churl12, mak'st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due14, by the grave and thee.
Sonnet 2
When forty1 winters shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field2,
Thy youth's proud livery3, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed4 of small worth held:
Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure6 of thy lusty days,
To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an all-eating shame8 and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use9
If thou couldst answer10, 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count11 and make my old excuse',
Proving his beauty by succession12 thine.
This were13 to be new made when thou art old
And see thy blood14 warm when thou feel'st it cold.
Sonnet 3
Look in thy glass1 and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair3 if now thou not renewest
Thou dost beguile4 the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared5 womb
Disdains the tillage6 of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond7 will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop8 posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back10 the lovely April of her prime:
So thou through windows11 of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live remembered not to be13,
Die14 single and thine image dies with thee.
Sonnet 4
Unthrifty1 loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy2?
Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And being frank4 she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard5, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largesse given thee to give?
Profitless usurer7, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live8?
For having traffic9 with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive10.
Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit12 canst thou leave?
Thy unused13 beauty must be tombed with thee,
Which, used, lives th'executor14 to be.
Sonnet 5
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame1
The lovely gaze2 where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair4 which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads5 summer on
To hideous winter and confounds6 him there,
Sap checked7 with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnowed8 and bareness everywhere.
Then, were not summer's distillation9 left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass10,
Beauty's effect with11 beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was12.
But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
Lose but their show14, their substance still lives sweet.
Sonnet 6
Then let not winter's1 ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial3; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-killed4.
That use5 is not forbidden usury,
Which happies6 those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier be it ten for one8.
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured10 thee.
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity12?
Be not self-willed13, for thou art much too fair
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
Sonnet 7
Lo, in the orient1 when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under2 eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty.
And having climbed the steep-up5 heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage.
But when from highmost pitch9, with weary car,
Like feeble age he reeleth10 from the day,
The eyes, fore11 duteous, now converted are
From his low tract12 and look another way:
So thou, thyself outgoing13 in thy noon,
Unlooked on diest14 unless thou get a son.
Sonnet 8
Music to hear1, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy4?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions6 married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide7 thee, who confounds
In singleness8 the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark9 how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each10 in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire11 and child and happy mother
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing,
Whose speechless13 song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'14
Sonnet 9
Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
That thou consum'st thyself in single life?
Ah, if thou issueless3 shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee, like a makeless4 wife,
The world will be thy widow and still5 weep
That thou no form6 of thee hast left behind,
When every private7 widow well may keep
By8 children's eyes her husband's shape in mind.
Look what9 an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his10 place, for still the world enjoys it,
But beauty's waste11 hath in the world an end,
And, kept unused12, the user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom13 sits
That on himself such murd'rous shame14 commits.
Sonnet 10
For shame1 deny that thou bear'st love to any,
Who for thyself art so unprovident2.
Grant3, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lov'st is most evident:
For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate
That gainst thyself thou stick'st6 not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof7 to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
O, change thy thought9, that I may change my mind.
Shall hate be fairer lodged10 than gentle love?
Be as thy presence11 is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove.
Make thee another self13, for love of me,
That beauty still14 may live in thine or thee.
Sonnet 11
As fast as thou shalt wane1, so fast thou grow'st
In one of thine2, from that which thou departest,
And that fresh blood3 which youngly thou bestow'st,
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth4 convertest.
Herein5 lives wisdom, beauty and increase:
Without this, folly, age and cold decay.
If all were minded so7, the times should cease,
And threescore year8 would make the world away.
Let those whom nature hath not made for store9,
Harsh, featureless10 and rude, barrenly perish.
Look whom11 she best endowed she gave the more,
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty12 cherish.
She carved thee for her seal13, and meant thereby
Thou shouldst print14 more, not let that copy die.
Sonnet 12
When I do count1 the clock that tells the time
And see the brave2 day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime3
And sable4 curls all silvered o'er with white,
When lofty trees I see barren5 of leaves,
Which erst6 from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up7 in sheaves
Borne on the bier8 with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make9
That thou among the wastes10 of time must go,