PRESENT AND FUTURE

O, that you were yourself! but, Love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live :
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.

So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were

Yourself again after yourself's decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day

And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

O, none but unthrifts! Dear my Love, you know

You had a father: let your son say so.

THE PROPHECIES OF LOVE

Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck ;
And yet methinks I have astronomy,

But not to tell of good or evil luck,

Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;

Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well,
By oft predict that I in heaven find:

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;

Or else of thee this I prognosticate:

Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

YOUTH AND TIME

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;

When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheer'd and check'd even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height deccrease
And wear their brave state out of memory;

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night;

And all in war with Time for love of you.
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

COUNSELS OF LOVE

But wherefore do not you a mightier way

Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
And fortify yourself in your decay

With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?

Now stand you on the top of happy hours,

And many maiden gardens yet unset

With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit :

So should the lines of life that life repair,
Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,
Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.

To give away yourself keeps yourself still,
And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

LOVE AS PAINTER

Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.

If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

The age to come would say 'This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.

So should my papers yellow'd with their age
Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretchéd metre of an antique song:

But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.