Lord of my love, to whom in vassal… Thy merit hath my duty strongly kn… To thee I send this written embas… To witness duty, not to show my wi… Duty so great, which wit so poor a…
In the old age black was not count… Or if it were, it bore not beauty’… But now is black beauty’s successi… And beauty slandered with a bastar… For since each hand hath put on N…
Thus is his cheek the map of days… When beauty lived and died as flow… Before these bastard signs of fair… Or durst inhabit on a living brow; Before the golden tresses of the d…
If my dear love were but the child… It might for Fortune’s bastard be… As subject to Time’s love or to T… Weeds among weeds, or flowers with… No, it was builded far from accide…
Let not my love be called idolatry… Nor my belovèd as an idol show, Since all alike my songs and prais… To one, of one, still such, and ev… Kind is my love today, tomorrow ki…
When in the chronicle of wasted ti… I see descriptions of the fairest… And beauty making beautiful old rh… In praise of ladies dead, and love… Then, in the blazon of sweet beaut…
What’s in the brain that ink may c… Which hath not figured to thee my… What’s new to speak, what now to r… That may express my love, or thy d… Nothing, sweet boy, but yet, like…
As fast as thou shalt wane, so fas… In one of thine, from that which t… And that fresh blood which youngly… Thou mayst call thine when thou fr… Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and i…
O, for my sake do you with Fortun… The guilty goddess of my harmful d… That did not better for my life pr… Than public means which public man… Thence comes it that my name recei…
Your love and pity doth th’ impres… Which vulgar scandal stamped upon… For what care I who calls me well… So you o’ergreen my bad, my good a… You are my all the world, and I m…
Since I left you, mine eye is in… And that which governs me to go ab… Doth part his function, and is par… Seems seeing, but effectually is o… For it no form delivers to the hea…
Or whether doth my mind, being cro… Drink up the monarch’s plague, thi… Or whether shall I say mine eye s… And that your love taught it this… To make of monsters, and things in…
Those lines that I before have wr… Even those that said I could not… Yet then my judgment knew no reaso… My most full flame should afterwar… But reckoning Time, whose million…
Like as to make our appetite more… With eager compounds we our palate… As to prevent our maladies unseen, We sicken to shun sickness when we… Even so being full of your ne’er-c…
What potions have I drunk of Sire… Distilled from limbecks foul as he… Applying fears to hopes, and hopes… Still losing when I saw my self t… What wretched errors hath my heart…
’TIS better to be vile than vile… When not to be receives reproach o… And the just pleasure lost, which… Not by our feeling, but by others’… For why should others’ false adult…
Thy gift, thy tables, are within m… Full charactered with lasting memo… Which shall above that idle rank r… Beyond all date even to eternity— Or at the least, so long as brain…
No, Time, thou shalt not boast th… Thy pyramids built up with newer m… To me are nothing novel, nothing s… They are but dressings of a former… Our dates are brief, and therefore…
Were’t aught to me I bore the can… With my extern the outward honouri… Or laid great bases for eternity, Which proves more short than waste… Have I not seen dwellers on form…
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy… Dost hold Time’s fickle glass his… Who hast by waning grown, and ther… Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet… If Nature, sovereign mistress ove…
How oft, when thou, my music, musi… Upon that blessèd wood whose motio… With thy sweet fingers when thou g… The wiry concord that mine ear con… Do I envy those jacks that nimble…
O, that you were your self! But,… No longer yours than you yourself… Against this coming end you should… And your sweet semblance to some o… So should that beauty which you ho…
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou… As those whose beauties proudly ma… For well thou know’st to my dear d… Thou art the fairest and most prec… Yet, in good faith, some say that…
Beshrew that heart that makes my h… For that deep wound it gives my fr… Is’t not enough to torture me alon… But slave to slavery my sweet’st f… Me from my self thy cruel eye hath…
So, now I have confessed that he… And I my self am mortgaged to thy… Myself I’ll forfeit, so that othe… Thou wilt restore to be my comfort… But thou wilt not, nor he will not…
Whoever hath her wish, thou hast t… And Will to boot, and Will in ove… More than enough am I that vex th… To thy sweet will making addition… Wilt thou, whose will is large and…
If thy soul check thee that I com… Swear to thy blind soul that I wa… And will thy soul knows is admitte… Thus far for love, my love suit, s… Will will fulfil the treasure of t…
Thou blind fool, Love, what dost… That they behold and see not what… They know what beauty is, see wher… Yet what the best is, take the wor… If eyes corrupt by overpartial loo…
O, call not me to justify the wron… That thy unkindness lays upon my h… Wound me not with thine eye but wi… Use power with power, and slay me… Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere, but…
Not from the stars do I my judgem… And yet methinks I have astronomy… But not to tell of good or evil lu… Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons… Nor can I fortune to brief minute…