81
Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten.
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die.
The earth can yield me but a common grave
When you entombèd in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse
When all the breathers of this world are dead.
   You still shall live - such virtue hath my pen -
   Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
82
I grant thou wert not married to my muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,
And therefore art enforced to seek anew
Some fresher stamp of these time-bettering days.
And do so, love ; yet when they have devised
What strainèd touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou, truly fair, wert truly sympathized
In true plain words by thy true-telling friend ;
   And their gross painting might be better used
   Where cheeks need blood : in thee it is abused.
83
I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set.
I found - or thought I found - you did exceed
The barren tender of a poet's debt ;
And therefore have I slept in your report :
That you yourself, being extant, well might show
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
This silence for my sin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory, being dumb ;
For I impair not beauty, being mute,
When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
   There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
   Than both your poets can in praise devise.
84
Who is it that says most which can say more
Than this rich praise : that you alone are you,
In whose confine immurèd is the store
Which should example where your equal grew ?
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory ;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies his story.
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admirèd everywhere.
   You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
   Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.
85
My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still
While comments of your praise, richly compiled,
Reserve thy character with golden quill
And precious phrase by all the muses filed.
I think good thoughts whilst other write good words,
And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen’
To every hymn that able spirit affords
In polished form of well-refinèd pen.
Hearing you praised I say ‘’Tis so, ’tis true,’
And to the most of praise add something more ;
But that is in my thought, whose love to you,
Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.
   Then others for the breath of words respect,
   Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.
86
Was it the proud full sail of his great verse
Bound for the prize of all-too precious you
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew ?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead ?
No, neither he nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid my verse astonishèd.
He nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors, of my silence cannot boast ;
I was not sick of any fear from thence.
   But when your countenance filled up his line,
   Then lacked I matter ; that enfeebled mine.
87
Farewell - thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate.
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing ;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving ?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then now knowing,
Or me to whom thou gav'st it else mistaking ;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
   Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter :
   In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
88
When thou shalt be disposed to set me light
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
Upon thy side against myself I'll fight,
And prove thee virtuous though thou art forsworn.
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults concealed wherein I am attainted,
That thou in losing me shall win much glory ;
And I by this will be a gainer too ;
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to myself I do,
Doing thee vantage, double vantage me.
   Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
   That for thy right myself will bear all wrong.
89
Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
And I will comment upon that offence ;
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desirèd change,
As I'll myself disgrace, knowing thy will.
I will acquaintance strangle and look strange,
Be absent from thy walks, and in my tongue
Thy sweet belovèd name no more shall dwell,
Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong,
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
   For thee, against myself I'll vow debate ;
   For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.
90
Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,
Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss.
Ah do not, when my heart hath scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe ;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset come ; so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune's might,
   And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
   Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.
 
William Shakespeare | Classic Poems
 
Ariel's Songs
 

 


 

 

 
 
 
 

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