YOUTH AND TIME

WHEN I consider everything 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 decrease 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

UT wherefore do not you a mightier way

BUT

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.

THE UNFADING PICTURE

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 too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest ;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou growest :

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this ;—and this gives life to thee.

THAT TIME SHOULD SPARE

HIS FRIEND

DEVOURING Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,

And make the earth devour her own sweet

brood;

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;

Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:

O, carve not with thy hours my Love's fair brow Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen ; Him in thy course untainted do allow

For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.

Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong, My Love shall in my verse ever live young.