So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse, And found such fair assistance in my verse As every alien pen hath got my use, And under thee their poesy disperse. Thine eyes, that

Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not, When I against myself with thee partake? Do I not think on thee, when I forgot Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake? Who

WHEN icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp’d, and ways be

A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion; An eye more bright

Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes, That they behold, and see not what they see? They know what beauty is, see where it lies, Yet what the best is take

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will, And Will to boot, and Will in overplus; More than enough am I that vex thee still, To thy sweet will making addition thus. Wilt thou,

So shall I live, supposing thou art true, Like a deceived husband; so love’s face May still seem love to me, though alter’d new; Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place: For

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me! Is’t not enough to torture me alone, But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, To thee I send this written embassage, To witness duty, not to show my wit: Duty so great, which

O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might, To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your

What’s in the brain that ink may character Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit? What’s new to speak, what now to register, That may express my love, or thy dear merit?

O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed? Both truth and beauty on my love depends; So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer, Muse.

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear respose for limbs with travel tirèd; But then begins a journey in my head To work my mind, when body’s work’s expirèd. For

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity once

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun; Nor the furious winter’s rages, Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney

Love is too young to know what conscience is; Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss, Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:

POOR soul, the centre of my sinful earth My sinful earth these rebel powers array Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost,

TH’ expense of Spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; Enjoy’d no sooner

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,

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,

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force, Some in their garments though new-fangled ill, Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their

THY bosom is endeared with all hearts Which I, by lacking, have supposed dead: And there reigns Love, and all Love’s loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a

Against my love shall be, as I am now, With Time’s injurious hand crushed and o’erworn; When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn

How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December’s bareness everywhere! And yet this time

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime

O, lest the world should task 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;

My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear; That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming The owner’s tongue doth publish everywhere. Our love was

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace, But now my gracious numbers are decayed, And my sick Muse doth give an other place. I grant,

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 That barren tender of a poet’s debt; And therefore

Who is it that says most? which can say more Than this rich praise, that you alone are you? In whose confine immured is the store Which should example where your equal grew. Lean

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I loved her dearly; That she hath thee is of my wailing chief, A loss in love that

So, now I have confess’d that he is thine, And I myself am mortgaged to thy will, Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still: But thou

O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds. Thence comes it

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits When I am sometime absent from thy heart, Thy beauty and thy years full well befits, For still temptation follows where thou art. Gentle thou art, and therefore

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright are bright in

O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might To make me tongue-tied speaking of your

When forty winters shall beseige thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held: Then being

If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered, As subject to Time’s love or to Time’s hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.

The little love god lying once asleep Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand, The fairest votary

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head, To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired: For

O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify. As easy might I from myself depart As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie: That

Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep: A maid of Dian’s this advantage found, And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep In a cold valley-fountain of that ground; Which borrow’d from this holy

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-fixed

As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest In one of thine, from that which thou departest; And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest Thou mayst call thine when thou from

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain, Have put on black and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. And truly not

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now, Will be a tattered weed of small worth held. Then being

No longer mourn for me when I am dead Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to

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

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

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel; For well thou know’st to my dear doting heart Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel. Yet,