If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd,
As fubject to Time's love or to Time's hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers
No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretic,
Which works on leases of short number'd hours,
But all alone ftands hugely politic,
That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with
To this I witness call the fools of time,
Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which prove more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not feen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
For compound fweet foregoing fimple favour,
Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obfequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art
But mutual render, only me for thee.
Hence, thou fuborn'd informer! a true foul
When most impeach'd stands least in thy control.
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Doft hold Time's fickie glass, his fickle, hour;
Who haft by waning grown, and therein show'ft
Thy lovers withering as thy fweet self grow'ft;
If Nature, fovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goeft onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time difgrace and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure :
Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's fucceffive heir,
And beauty flander'd with a bastard shame:
For fince each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in difgrace.
Therefore my mistress'
eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so fuited, and they mourners seem
At fuch who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem:
Yet fo they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue fays beauty should look so.
How oft, when thou, my mufic, mufic play'st
Upon that blessed wood whose motion founds
With thy fweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kifs the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilft my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be fo tickled, they would change their state
And fituation with thofe dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more bleft than living lips.
Since faucy jacks fo happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.
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