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LXXII.

O, left the world should task you to recite

What merit lived in
me, that you should love
After my death, dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart :
O, left
your true love may feem false in this,

That

you for love speak well of me untrue, My name be buried where my body is, And live no more to shame nor me nor you. For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

LXXIII.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds fang.
In me thou fee'ft the twilight of fuch day

As after funfet fadeth in the weft;

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's fecond self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou fee'ft the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Confumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more ftrong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

LXXIV.

But be contented: when that fell arreft
Without all bail fhall carry me away,
My life hath in this line fome interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou doft review
The very part was confecrate to thee:

The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me:
So then thou haft but loft the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead;
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered.

The worth of that is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.

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LXXV.

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as fweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold fuch ftrife
As 'twixt a mifer and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting beft to be with you alone,

Then better'd that the world may fee my pleasure :
Sometime, all full with feasting on your fight,

And by and by clean starved for a look;
Poffeffing or pursuing no delight,

Save what is had or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and furfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

LXXVI.

Why is my verse fo barren of new prides
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance afide
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?

O, know, fweet love, I always write of you,

And

you and love are still my argument; So all my best is dreffing old words new, Spending again what is already spent:

For as the fun is daily new and old,

So is my love ftill telling what is told.

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