XVII.

Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deferts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes

And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

The

age

to come would fay This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So fhould my papers, yellowed with their age,
Be fcorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And

your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And ftretched metre of an antique fong:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice, in it and in my rime.

XVIII.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate :
Rough winds do fhake the darling buds of May,
And fummer's leafe hath all too fhort a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair fometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing courfe untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lofe poffeffion of that fair thou oweft,

Nor fhall death brag thou wander'ft in his fhade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'ft;

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

XIX.

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own fweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and forry feafons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;

K

But I forbid thee one moft heinous crime:

A

O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow, Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen; Him in thy course untainted do allow

For beauty's pattern to fucceeding men.

Yet do thy worft, old Time: defpite thy wrong,

My love fhall in my verse ever live young.

XX.

A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Haft thou, the mafter-mistress of my paffion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue all hues in his controlling,

Which steals men's eyes and women's fouls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;

Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But fince she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure.

XXI.

So is it not with me as with that Muse
Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare,
With fun and moon, with earth and fea's rich gems,
With April's firft-born flowers, and all things rare
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O, let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air :
Let them fay more that like of hear-fay well;
I will not praise that purpose not to fell.