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; Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire 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, This I do vow and this shall ever be ; 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 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 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; As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back, 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, 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. |