CXIV.

Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery? Or whether shall I fay, mine eye saith true, And that your love taught it this alchemy, To make of monsters and things indigeft Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, Creating every bad a perfect beft,

As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
O, 'tis the firft; 'tis flattery in my feeing,

And my great mind most kingly drinks it up :
Mine eye well knows what with his guft is 'greeing,
And to his palate doth prepare the cup:

If it be poifon'd, 'tis the leffer fin

That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

CXV.

dearer :

Thofe lines that I before have writ do lie, Even those that faid I could not love you Yet then my judgement knew no reason why My most full flame should asterwards burn clearer. But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents

Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan facred beauty, blunt the sharp'ft intents,
Divert ftrong minds to the course of altering things;
Alas, why, fearing of Time's tyranny,

Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'
When I was certain o'er incertainty,

Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
Love is a babe; then might I not say so,

To give full growth to that which still doth grow?

CXVI.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove :

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempefts and is never shaken;

It is the ftar to every wandering bark,

[taken. Whole worth's unknown, although his height be

Love's not Time's fool, though rofy lips and cheeks Within his bending fickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

CXVII.

Accufe 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-purchased right;
That I have hoifted fail to all the winds

Which should transport me fartheft from your fight.
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on just proof furmise 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 conftancy and virtue of your love.

CXVIII.

Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,

We ficken to fhun sickness when we purge;

Even fo, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness, To bitter fauces did I frame my feeding;

And fick of welfare found a kind of meetness

To be diseased, ere that there was true needing.

Thus policy in love, to anticipate

The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state,
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured:

But thence I learn, and find the leffon true,
Drugs poison him that so fell fick of you.