Sonnet 59
If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled2,
Which, labouring3 for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child.
O, that record5 could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun6,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done8,
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame10:
Whether we are mended11, or whe'er better they,
Or whether revolution be the same12.
O, sure I am the wits13 of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
Sonnet 60
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with3 that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend4.
Nativity5, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,
Crooked7 eclipses gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound8.
Time doth transfix9 the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels10 in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities11 of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe12 to mow.
And yet to times in hope13 my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
Sonnet 61
Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows4 like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and8 tenure of thy jealousy?
O no, thy love, though much, is not so great:
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat
To play the watchman ever for thy sake.
For thee watch I13, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.
Sonnet 62
Sin of self-love possesseth1 all mine eye
And all my soul and all my every part,
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious5 is as mine,
No shape so true6, no truth of such account,
And for myself7 mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount8.
But when my glass9 shows me myself indeed,
Beated and chopped10 with tanned antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:
Self so self-loving were iniquity12.
'Tis thee, my self, that for myself I praise13,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days.
Sonnet 63
Against1 my love shall be as I am now
With Time's injurious2 hand crushed and o'er-worn,
When hours have drained his blood3 and filed his brow
With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn
Hath travelled on to age's steepy5 night,
And all those beauties whereof now he's king
Are vanishing, or vanished, out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring8:
For such a time do I now fortify9
Against confounding10 age's cruel knife,
That11 he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love's beauty, though12 my lover's life.
His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
And they shall live and he in them still green14.
Sonnet 64
When I have seen by Time's fell1 hand defaced
The rich proud cost2 of outworn buried age,
When sometime3 lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass4 eternal slave to mortal rage,
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of7 the wat'ry main,
Increasing8 store with loss and loss with store,
When I have seen such interchange of state9,
Or state10 itself confounded to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate11
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
Sonnet 65
Since1 brass nor stone nor earth nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways2 their power,
How with this rage3 shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action4 is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful6 siege of batt'ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! Where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from10 Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
Or who his spoil12 of beauty can forbid?
O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
Sonnet 66
Tired with all these1, for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born2,
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity3,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn4,
And gilded5 honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted6,
And right7 perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway8 disabled,
And art9 made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly doctor-like10 controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity11,
And captive good attending12 captain ill.
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that to14 die I leave my love alone.
Sonnet 67
Ah, wherefore1 with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety2,
That sin by3 him advantage should achieve
And lace4 itself with his society?
Why should false painting5 imitate his cheek
And steal dead seeing6 of his living hue?
Why should poor7 beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow8, since his rose is true?
Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is9,
Beggared of blood to blush through lively10 veins,
For she hath no exchequer11 now but his,
And, proud of many12, lives upon his gains?
O, him she stores13, to show what wealth she had
In days long since, before these last so bad.
Sonnet 68
Thus1 is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before these bastard signs of fair3 were born
Or durst inhabit4 on a living brow,
Before the golden tresses of the dead5,
The right of sepulchres6, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head,
Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay8:
In him those holy antique hours9 are seen,
Without all ornament, itself and true,
Making no summer of another's green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,
And him as for a map doth Nature store,
To show false Art what beauty was of yore14.
Sonnet 69
Those parts1 of thee that the world's eye doth view
Want2 nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Utt'ring bare truth, even so as foes commend4.
Thy outward5 thus with outward praise is crowned,
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own6
In other accents7 do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that, in guess10, they measure by thy deeds.
Then, churls11, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower add the rank12 smell of weeds:
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The soil14 is this, that thou dost common grow.
Sonnet 70
That thou art blamed1 shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark2 was ever yet the fair:
The ornament of beauty is suspect3,
A crow4 that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
So thou be5 good, slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater, being wooed oft-time:
For canker7 vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present'st a pure unstained8 prime.
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days9,
Either not assailed10 or victor being charged:
Yet this thy praise cannot be so11 thy praise,
To tie up envy evermore enlarged12.
If some suspect of ill13 masked not thy show,
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe14.
Sonnet 71
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen2 bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell.
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 woe8.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded10 am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse11,
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan13
And mock you with me14 after I am gone.
Sonnet 72
O, lest the world should task1 you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death, dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove,
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie
To do more for me than mine own desert
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard8 truth would willingly impart.
O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue10,
My name be buried where my body is
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth13,
And so should you14, to love things nothing worth.
Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs4, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self8, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by12.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong
To love that14 well which thou must leave ere long.
Sonnet 74
But1 be contented when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away:
My life hath in this line3 some interest,
Which for memorial4 still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest5 this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate6 to thee.
The earth can have but earth, which is his due:
My spirit is thine, the better part of me.
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward11 conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base12 of thee to be remembered.
The worth of that13 is that which it contains,
And that is this14, and this with thee remains.
Sonnet 75
So are you to my thoughts as food to life
Or as sweet-seasoned2 showers are to the ground,
And for the peace of you3 I hold such strife
As 'twixt4 a miser and his wealth is found:
Now proud as an enjoyer and anon5
Doubting6 the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting7 best to be with you alone,
Then bettered8 that the world may see my pleasure,
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean10 starved for a look,
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine13 and surfeit day by day,
Or14 gluttoning on all, or all away.
Sonnet 76
Why is my verse so barren of new pride1?
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds strange4?
Why write I still all one5, ever the same,
And keep invention6 in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed8?
O know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument10:
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent,
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling14 what is told.
Sonnet 77
Thy glass1 will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial2 how thy precious minutes waste,
The vacant leaves3 thy mind's imprint will bear,
And of this book this learning4 mayst thou taste.
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory6,
Thou by thy dial's shady stealth7 mayst know
Time's thievish progress to eternity.
Look what thy memory cannot contain
Commit to these waste blanks10 and thou shalt find
Those children11 nursed, delivered from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of12 thy mind.
These offices13, so oft as thou wilt look,
Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.
Sonnet 78
So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse1
And found such fair2 assistance in my verse
As3 every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee4 their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high5 to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers7 to the learned's wing
And given grace8 a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile9,
Whose influence is thine and born of thee.
In others' works thou dost but mend11 the style,
And arts12 with thy sweet graces graced be:
But thou
art13 all my art and dost advance
As high as learning my rude14 ignorance.
Sonnet 79
Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace2,
But now my gracious numbers3 are decayed
And my sick Muse4 doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument5
Deserves the travail6 of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee7 thy poet doth invent
He robs thee of and pays it thee again.
He lends thee virtue and he stole that word
From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give
And found it in thy cheek: he can afford11
No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.
Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay.
Sonnet 80
O, how I faint1 when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit2 doth use your name
And in the praise thereof spends all his might
To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame.
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as6 the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark7 inferior far to his
On your broad main8 doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help9 will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless10 deep doth ride,
Or being wrecked, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building12 and of goodly pride.
Then if he thrive and I be cast away13,
The worst was this: my love was my decay14.
Sonnet 81
Or1 I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
From hence3 your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part4 will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world6 must die.
The earth can yield me but a common7 grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument9 shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be11 your being shall rehearse
When all the breathers of this world12 are dead.
You still13 shall live -- such virtue hath my pen --
Where breath most breathes, ev'n in the14 mouths of men.
Sonnet 82
I grant1 thou wert not married to my Muse
And therefore mayst without attaint2 o'erlook
The dedicated words3 which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing4 every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue5,
Finding thy worth a limit past6 my praise,
And therefore art enforced to seek anew