Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
For ftill temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be affailed;
And when a woman woos, what woman's fon
Will fourly leave her till she have prevailed?
Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty and thy ftraying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth,-
Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine, by thy beauty being falfe to me.
That thou haft her, it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,
A lofs in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye :
Thou doft love her, because thou know'ft I love her;
And for my fake even so doth she abuse me,
Suffering my friend for my fake to approve her.
If I lofe thee, my lofs is my love's gain,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my fake lay on me this cross:
But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;
Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I fleep, in dreams they look on thee, And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow's form form happy show To the clear day with thy much clearer light, When to unseeing eyes thy fhade shines fo! How would, I fay, mine eyes be blessed made . By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade Through heavy sleep on fightless eyes doth stay! All days are nights to fee till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do fhow thee
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then, despite of space, I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou doft stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the fartheft earth removed from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both fea and land,
As foon as think the place where he would be.
But, ah, thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, fo much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leisure with my moan;
Receiving nought by elements fo flow
But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.
The other two, flight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embaffy of love to thee,
My life, being made of four, with two alone
Sinks down to death, oppreff'd with melancholy;
Until life's compofition be recured
By those swift messengers return'd from thee,
Who even but now come back again, assured
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:
This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,
I fend them back again, and ftraight grow fad.
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