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DEFIANCE TO TIME

NO, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change :

Thy pyramids built up with newer might

To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.

Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,

And rather make them born to our desire

Than think that we before have heard them told.

Thy registers and thee I both defy,

Not wondering at the present nor the past,

For thy records and what we see do lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste.

This I do vow and this shall ever be ;
I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.

THE TRUE STATESMANSHIP

F my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd, As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.

No, it was builded far from accident;

It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls:

It fears not policy, that heretic,

Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,

But all alone stands hugely politic,

That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with showers.

To this I witness call the fools of time,

Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

THE FREEMAN OF LOVE

WERE'T aught to me I bore the canopy,

With my extern the outward honouring,

Or laid great bases for eternity,

Which prove more short than waste or ruining?

Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
For compound sweet foregoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?

No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,

And take thou my oblation, poor but free,

Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art, But mutual render, only me for thee.

Hence, thou suborn'd informer ! a true soul,

When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control.

O CRUDELIS ADHUC

THOU, my lovely boy, who in thy power

Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow'st ;
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,

As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure :
Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be,
And her quietus is to render Thee.

OF HIS LADY LOVE

IN the old age black was not counted fair,

Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name; But now is black beauty's successive heir, And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame :

For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.

Therefore my mistress' brows are raven black, Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack, Slandering creation with a false esteem :

Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe, That every tongue says, beauty should look so.

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