CXI.

O, for my fake do you with Fortune chide,

The guilty goddess of my

harmful deeds,

That did not better for my life provide

Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is fubdued

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me then and wish I were renew'd;
Whilft, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eifel, 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I affure ye
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

CXII.

Your love and pity doth the impreffion fill
Which vulgar scandal ftamp'd upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all the world, and I must strive

To know my fhames and praises from your tongue;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,

That

my fteel'd sense or changes right or wrong. In fo profound abyfm I throw all care

Of others' voices, that my adder's sense
To critic and to flatterer ftopped are.
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:

You are fo ftrongly in my purpose bred

That all the world befides methinks they're dead.

CXIII.

Since I left you mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;

For it no form delivers to the heart

Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch:
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,

Nor his own vifion holds what it doth catch;
For if it fee the rudeft or gentlest sight,

The most sweet favour or deformed'ft creature,
The mountain or the fea, the day or night,

The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature :
Incapable of more, replete with you,

My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.

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 indigest
Such cherubins as your fweet felf resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect beft,

As faft as objects to his beams affemble?
O, 'tis the first; 'tis flattery in my seeing,

And my great mind most kingly drinks it up :
Mine eye well knows what with his gust 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 :

Those 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 moft full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents

Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan facred beauty, blunt the sharp'st 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 beft,'
When I was certain o'er incertainty,

Crowning the prefent, doubting of the reft?

Love is a babe; then might I not say so,

To give full growth to that which still doth grow?