LVIII.

That god forbid that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,

Being your vassal, bound to stay your

O, let me fuffer, being at your beck,

leifure !

The imprison'd abfence of your liberty;

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accufing you of injury.

Be where you lift, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of felf-doing crime.

I am to wait, though waiting fo be hell,
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

LIX.

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amifs
The fecond burthen of a former child!

O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courfes of the fun,

Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!

That I might fee what the old world could fay
To this compofed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.

O, fure I am, the wits of former days

To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

LX.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes haften to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In fequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipfes 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow :
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, defpite his cruel hand.

LXI.

Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Doft thou defire my flumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my fight?
Is it thy fpirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,

To find out fhames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenour of thy jealousy?

O, no! thy love, though much, is not fo great:
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;

Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,

To play the watchman ever for thy fake:

For thee watch I whilft thou doft wake elsewhere,

From me far off, with others all too near.

Sin of felf-love poffeffeth all mine eye
And all my foul and all my every part;
And for this fin there is no remedy,
It is fo grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face fo gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths furmount.
But when my glass shows me myself indeed,
Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity,
Mine own felf-love quite contrary I read ;
Self fo felf-loving were iniquity.

'Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days.