Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own fweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and forry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, fwift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to fucceeding men.
Yet do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young.
A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Haft thou, the master-mistress of my paffion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's fouls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But fince she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure.
So is it not with me as with that Muse
Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare,
With fun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
With April's firft-born flowers, and all things rare
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O, let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As thofe gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:
Let them say more that like of hear-say well;
I will not praise that purpose not to fell.
My glass shall not perfuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the feemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep fo chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
Prefume not on thy heart when mine is flain;
Thou gaveft me thine, not to give back again.
As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put befides his part,
Or fome fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart ; So I, for fear of truft, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might.
O, let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb prefagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more expreff’d.
O, learn to read what filent love hath writ :
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
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