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CIV



To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For as you were when first your eye I ey\'d,

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,

Have from the forests shook three summers\' pride,

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn\'d,

In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn\'d,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv\'d;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv\'d:

  For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:

  Ere you were born was beauty\'s summer dead.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXIII



Against my love shall be as I am now,

With Time\'s injurious hand crush\'d and o\'erworn;

When hours have drain\'d his blood and fill\'d his brow

With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn

Hath travell\'d on to age\'s steepy night;

And all those beauties whereof now he\'s king

Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,

Stealing away the treasure of his spring; 

For such a time do I now fortify

Against confounding age\'s cruel knife,

That he shall never cut from memory

My sweet love\'s beauty, though my lover\'s life:

  His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,

  And they shall live, and he in them still green.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXI



Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, 

As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;

For well thou know\'st to my dear doting heart

Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.

Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,

Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;

To say they err I dare not be so bold,

Although I swear it to myself alone.

And to be sure that is not false I swear,

A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,

One on another\'s neck, do witness bear

Thy black is fairest in my judgment\'s place.

  In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,

  And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXVII



Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,

Wherein I should your great deserts repay,

Forgot upon your dearest love to call, 

Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

That I have frequent been with unknown minds,

And given to time your own dear-purchas\'d right;

That I have hoisted sail to all the winds

Which should transport me farthest from your sight.

Book both my wilfulness and errors down,

And on just proof surmise, accumulate;

Bring me within the level of your frown,

But shoot not at me in your waken\'d hate;

  Since my appeal says I did strive to prove

  The constancy and virtue of your love.

 	--William Shakespeare