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THE SONNETS `
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by William Shakespeare `
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I `
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From fairest creatures we desire increase, `
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That thereby beauty's rose might never die, `
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But as the riper should by time decease, `
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His tender heir might bear his memory: `
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But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes, `
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Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, `
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Making a famine where abundance lies, `
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Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel: `
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Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament, `
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And only herald to the gaudy spring, `
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Within thine own bud buriest thy content, `
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And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding: `
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Pity the world, or else this glutton be, `
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To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. `
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II `
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When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, `
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And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, `
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Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now, `
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Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held: `
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Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies, `
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Where all the treasure of thy lusty days; `
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To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes, `
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Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise. `
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How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use, `
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If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine `
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Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,' `
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Proving his beauty by succession thine! `
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This were to be new made when thou art old, `
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And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold. `
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III `
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Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest `
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Now is the time that face should form another; `
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Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, `
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Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. `
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For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb `
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Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? `
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Or who is he so fond will be the tomb, `
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Of his self-love to stop posterity? `
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Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee `
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Calls back the lovely April of her prime; `
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So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, `
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Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time. `
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But if thou live, remember'd not to be, `
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Die single and thine image dies with thee. `
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IV `
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Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend `
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Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy? `
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Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, `
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And being frank she lends to those are free: `
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Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse `
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The bounteous largess given thee to give? `
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Profitless usurer, why dost thou use `
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So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live? `
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For having traffic with thy self alone, `
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Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive: `
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Then how when nature calls thee to be gone, `
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What acceptable audit canst thou leave? `
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Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee, `
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Which, used, lives th' executor to be. `
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V `
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Those hours, that with gentle work did frame `
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The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, `
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Will play the tyrants to the very same `
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And that unfair which fairly doth excel; `
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For never-resting time leads summer on `
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To hideous winter, and confounds him there; `
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Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone, `
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Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where: `
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Then were not summer's distillation left, `
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A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, `
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Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, `
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Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was: `
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But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet, `
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Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet. `
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VI `
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Then let not winter's ragged hand deface, `
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In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd: `
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Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place `
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With beauty's treasure ere it be self-kill'd. `
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That use is not forbidden usury, `
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Which happies those that pay the willing loan; `
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That's for thy self to breed another thee, `
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Or ten times happier, be it ten for one; `
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Ten times thy self were happier than thou art, `
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If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee: `
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Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart, `
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Leaving thee living in posterity? `
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Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair `
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To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir. `
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VII `
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Lo! in the orient when the gracious light `
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Lifts up his burning head, each under eye `
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Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, `
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Serving with looks his sacred majesty; `
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And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill, `
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Resembling strong youth in his middle age, `
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Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, `
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Attending on his golden pilgrimage: `
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But when from highmost pitch, with weary car, `
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Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, `
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The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are `
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From his low tract, and look another way: `
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So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon: `
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Unlook'd, on diest unless thou get a son. `
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VIII `
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Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? `
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Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy: `
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Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly, `
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Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy? `
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If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, `
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By unions married, do offend thine ear, `
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They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds `
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In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. `
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Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, `
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Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; `
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Resembling sire and child and happy mother, `
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Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing: `
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Whose speechless song being many, seeming one, `
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Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.' `
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IX `
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Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye, `
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That thou consum'st thy self in single life? `
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Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die, `
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The world will wail thee like a makeless wife; `
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The world will be thy widow and still weep `
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That thou no form of thee hast left behind, `
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When every private widow well may keep `
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By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind: `
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Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend `
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Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it; `
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But beauty's waste hath in the world an end, `
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And kept unused the user so destroys it. `
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No love toward others in that bosom sits `
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That on himself such murd'rous shame commits. `
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X `
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For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any, `
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Who for thy self art so unprovident. `
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Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many, `
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But that thou none lov'st is most evident: `
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For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate, `
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That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire, `
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Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate `
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Which to repair should be thy chief desire. `
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O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind: `
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Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love? `
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Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind, `
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Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove: `
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Make thee another self for love of me, `
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That beauty still may live in thine or thee. `
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XI `
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As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st, `
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In one of thine, from that which thou departest; `
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And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st, `
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Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest, `
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Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase; `
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Without this folly, age, and cold decay: `
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If all were minded so, the times should cease `
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And threescore year would make the world away. `
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Let those whom nature hath not made for store, `
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Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish: `
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Look, whom she best endow'd, she gave thee more; `
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Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish: `
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She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant thereby, `
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Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die. `
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XII `
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When I do count the clock that tells the time, `
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And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; `
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