But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end.
Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
And there reigns love, and all love's loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear-religious love stol'n from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things remov'd, that hidden in thee a lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
That due of many now is thine alone:
Their images I lov'd I view in thee,
And thou, all they, hast all-the-all of me.
If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,"
Compare them with the bettering of the time;
And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,-
"Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
To march in ranks of better equipage:
But since he died, and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love."
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
hidden in thee lie ] Old copy, "-in there."
b thy deceased lover,-] In the perusal of these Sonnets the reader should always bear in mind that friendship in Shakespeare's day was commonly spoken of as love. Brutus, in "Julius Caesar," addresses the Roman people as "Romans, countrymen, and lovers," and speaks of Cæsar as his "best lover." Portia, "Merchant of Venice," conjectures that Antonio, being the bosom lover" of her husband, must needs resemble him. Ben Jonson winds up a letter to Dr. Donne by telling him he is his "true lover;" and subscribes himself the lover of Camden; and Drayton, writing to Drummond of Hawthornden, informs him that Mr. Joseph Davies is in love with him. • Reserve them-] "Reserve" for preserve; as in " Pericles," Act IV. Sc. 1,
That excellent complexion which did steal
The eyes of young and old."
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all-triumphant splendour on my brow;
But, out, alack! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak,
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross.b
Ah, but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.
No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are: c
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,-
Thy adverse party is thy advocate,-
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate,
That I an accessory needs must be
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
With ugly rack-] See note (1), p. 511, Vol. III.; and compare "Henry IV." Part I. Act I. Sc. 2,
herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world," &c.
b- the strong offence's cross.] The old copy, by a palpable mistake, repeats "loss" from the corresponding line above.
e Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:] The quarto reads, "Excusing their sins more than their sins are."
Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one;
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame;
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour, from thy name:
But do not so; I love thee in such sort,
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by fortune's dearest a spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,
That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,
And by a part of all thy glory live.
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee;
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
How can my Muse want subject to invent,
While thou dost breathe, thou pour'st into my verse
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thyself dost give invention light?
So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite.-] Dearest spite is intensest spite. See note (6), p. 495, Vol. V. From the expression in this line, "So I, made lame," &c., and another in the 89th Sonnet,
"Speak of my lameness, an I straight will halt,”—
some critics have maintained that the poet was actually lame; but the expression in both instances is thought with more probability by others to be merely figurative.
b Entitled-]" Entitled means, I think, ennobled. The old copy reads, "in their parts."-MALONE.
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to out-live long date.
If my slight Muse do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
O, how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is 't but mine own, when I praise thee?
Even for this let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this séparation I may give
That due to thee, which thou deserv'st alone.
O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,-
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth a deceive,-
And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
By praising him here who doth hence remain!
Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all:
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then, if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blam'd, if thou thyself deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;
doth deceive, In the old copy, "dost deceive."
if thou thyself deceivest-] The quarto reads, "if thou this self deceivest," which can hardly be right.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd:]
And when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will sourly leave her till she have prevail'd?
Ah me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forc'd to break a two-fold truth,—
Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.
That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I lov'd her dearly;
That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:-
Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.
If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross:
But here's the joy,-my friend and I are one;
Sweet flattery!-then she loves but me alone.
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected; b
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to seed till I see thee,
And nights, bright days, when dreams do show thee me.
Compare, "Henry VI." Part I. Act V. Sc. 3,—
"She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd:
She is a woman, therefore to be won."
till she have prevail'd?] The old text mistakenly has, "till he have prevail'd ? things unrespected;] Things unregarded.
thy fair-] Old text, "their fair."
d All days are nights to sec, &c.] Malone thought the true reading was, "All days are nights to me," &c.: but hear Steevens: "As, fair to see (an expression which occurs in a hundred of our old ballads) signifies fair to sight, so,-all days are nights to see, means, all days are gloomy to behold, i.e. look like nights."
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