| 111 |
| O, for my sake do you with fortune chide, |
| The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, |
| That did not better for my life provide |
| Then public means which public manners breeds. |
| Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, |
| And almost thence my nature is subdued |
| To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. |
| Pity me then, and wish I were renewed, |
| Whilst like a willing patient I will drink |
| Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection ; |
| No bitterness that I will bitter think, |
| Nor double penance to correct correction. |
| Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye |
| Even that your pity is enough to cure me.
|
| 112 |
| Your love and pity doth th'impression fill |
| Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow ; |
| For what care I who calls me well or ill, |
| So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow ? |
| You are my all the world, and I must strive |
| To know my shames and praises from your tongue - |
| None else to me, nor I to none alive, |
| That my steeled sense or changes, right or wrong. |
| In so profound abyss I throw all care |
| Of others' voices that my adder's sense |
| To critic and to flatterer stoppèd are. |
| Mark how with my neglect I do dispense : |
| You are so strongly in my purpose bred |
| That all the world besides, methinks, they're dead.
|
| 113 |
| Since I left you mine eye is in my mind, |
| And that which governs me to go about |
| Doth part his function and is partly blind, |
| Seems seeing, but effectually is out ; |
| For it no form delivers to the heart |
| Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch. |
| Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, |
| Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch ; |
| For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight, |
| The most sweet favour or deformèdst creature, |
| The mountain or the sea, the day or night, |
| The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature. |
| Incapable of more, replete with you, |
| My most true mind thus makes mine eye untrue.
|
| 114 |
| Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you, |
| Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery, |
| Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true, |
| And that your love taught it this alchemy, |
| To make of monsters and things indigest |
| Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, |
| Creating every bad a perfect best |
| As fast as objects to his beams assemble ? |
| O, 'tis the first, 'tis flatt'ry in my seeing, |
| And my great mind most kingly drinks it up. |
| Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, |
| And to his palate doth prepare the cup. |
| If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin |
| That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
|
| 115 |
| Those lines that I before have writ do lie, |
| Even those that said I could not love you dearer ; |
| Yet then my judgement knew no reason why |
| My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer. |
| But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents |
| Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings, |
| Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, |
| Divert strong minds to th' course of alt'ring things - |
| Alas, why, fearing of time's tyranny, |
| Might I not then say 'Now I love you best', |
| When I was certain o'er incertainty, |
| Crowning the present, doubting of the rest ? |
| Love is a babe ; then might I not say so, |
| To give full growth to that which still
doth grow.
|
| 116 |
| 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 wand'ring barque, |
| 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.
|
| 117 |
| Accuse me thus : that I have scanted all |
| Wherein I should your great deserts repay, |
| Forgot upon your dearest love to call |
| Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day ; |
| That I have frequent been with unknown minds, |
| And given to time your own dear-purchased right ; |
| That I have hoisted sail to all the winds |
| Which should transport me farthest from your sight. |
| Book both my wilfulness and errors down, |
| And on just proof surmise accumulate ; |
| Bring me within the level of your frown, |
| But shoot not at me in your wakened hate, |
| Since my appeal says I did strive to prove |
| The constancy and virtue of your love.
|
| 118 |
| Like as, to make our appetites more keen, |
| With eager compounds we our palate urge ; |
| As to prevent our maladies unseen |
| We sicken to shun sickness when we purge : |
| Even so, being full of your ne'er cloying sweetness, |
| To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding, |
| And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness |
| To be diseased ere that there was true needing. |
| Thus policy in love, t'anticipate |
| The ills that were not, grew to faults assured, |
| And brought to medicine a healthful state |
| Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured |
| But thence I learn, and find the lesson true : |
| Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.
|
| 119 |
| What potions have I drunk of siren tears |
| Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within, |
| Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears, |
| Still losing when I saw myself to win ! |
| What wretched errors hath my heart committed |
| Whilst it hath thought itself so blessèd never ! |
| How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted |
| In the distraction of this madding fever ! |
| O benefit of ill ! Now I find true |
| That better is by evil still made better |
| And ruined love when it is built anew |
| Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. |
| So I return rebuked to my content, |
| And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.
|
| 120 |
| That you were once unkind befriends me now, |
| And for that sorrow which I then did feel |
| Needs must I under my transgression bow, |
| Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel. |
| For if you were by my unkindness shaken |
| As I by yours, you've past a hell of time, |
| And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken |
| To weigh how once I suffered in your crime. |
| O that our night of woe might have remembered |
| My deepest sense how hard true sorry hits, |
| And soon to you as you to me then tendered |
| The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits ! |
| But that your trespass now becomes a fee ; |
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.
|
| William Shakespeare |
Classic Poems |
| |
| Ariel's Songs |
