BEING myself captived here in care,
My heart, whom none with servile bands can tye,
But the fair tresses of your golden hair,
Breaking his prison, forth to you doth fly;
Like as a bird that in one's hand doth spy
Desired food, to it doth make his flight;
Even so my heart, that wont on your fair eye
To feed his fill, flies back unto your sight.
Do you him take, and in your bosom bright
Gently engage, that he may be your thrall;
Perhaps he there may learn, with rare delight,
To sing your name and praises over all,
That it hereafter may you not repent,
Him lodging in your bosom to have lent.
ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away;
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide and made my pains his prey.
Vain Man! said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so, quoth I; let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name, Where, when as Death shall all the world subdew, Our love shall live, and later life renew.
MEN call you fair, and you do credit it,
For that yourself ye daily such do see;
But the true fair, that is, the gentle wit,
And vertuous mind, is much more praised of me ;
For all the rest, however fair it be,
Shall turn to naught, and lose that glorious hue;
But only that is permanent and free
From frail corruption, that doth flesh ensew :
That is true beauty; that doth argue you
To be divine, and born of heavenly seed,
Derived from that fair Spirit from whom all true
And perfect beauty did at first proceed:
He only fair, and what he fair hath made;
All other fair, like flowres, untimely fade.
THE world, that cannot deem of worldly things,
When I do praise her, say I do but flatter;
So doth the cuckow, when the mavis sings,
Begin his witless note apace to chatter.
But they that skill not of so heavenly matter,
All that they know not envy or admire;
Rather than envy let them wonder at her,
But not to deem of her desert aspire.
Deep in the closet of my parts entire,
Her worth is written with a golden quill,
That me with heavenly fury doth inspire,
And my glad mouth with her sweet praises fill,
Which when as Fame in her shrill trump shall thunder,
Let the world chuse to envy or to wonder.
VENOMOUS tongue, tipt with vile adder's sting,
Of that self kind with which the Furies fell
Their snaky heads do comb, from which a spring
Of poisoned words and spightful speeches well,
Let all the plagues and horrid pains of hell
Upon thee fall for thine accursed hire.
That with false forged lyes, which thou didst tell,
In my true love did stir up coals of ire,
The sparks whereof let kindle thine own fire,
And catching hold on thine own wicked head,
Consume thee quite, that didst with guile conspire
my sweet
peace such breaches to have bred.
Shame be thy meed, and mischief thy reward,
Due to thyself that it for me prepared.
SINCE I did leave the presence of my love,
Many long weary days I have outworn,
And many nights, that slowly seemed to move
Their sad protract from evening until morn:
For when as day the heaven doth adorn,
I wish that night the noyous day would end;
And when as night hath us of light forlorn,
I wish that day would shortly re-ascend.
Thus I the time with expectation spend,
And fain my grief with changes to beguile,
That further seems his term still to extend,
And maketh every minute seem a mile :
So sorrow still doth seem too long to last,
But joyous hours do fly away too fast.
LIKE as the culver on the bared bough
Sits mourning for the absence of her mate,
And in her mone sends many a wishful vow
For his return, that seems to linger late;
So I alone, now left disconsolate,
Mourn to myself the absence of my love,
And wandering here and there all desolate,
Seek with my plaints to match that mournful dove.
Ne joy of ought that under heaven doth hove
Can comfort me, but her own joyous sight,
Whose sweet aspect both God and man can move,
In her unspotted pleasance to delight:
Dark is my day whiles her fair light I miss,
And dead my life, that wants such lively bliss.
All that we know of this truly great dramatic poet's life may be comprized in a few sentences. His modesty must have been as great almost as his wonderful genius. He was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire, on the 23rd of April, 1564. He was the son of "a considerable dealer in wool," whose "family were of good figure and fashion." At the age of eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, and four years after he visited the metropolis; but the cause of his leaving his native place remains unknown. It is believed his life was irregular, that he passed his time between the court and the theatre; to this period the composition of the exquisite Sonnets is attributed, as also the passionate, devoted, but unfortunate attachment to the nameless being to whom many of the Sonnets were addressed.
The Sonnets are the only records he has left us of his personal and private feelings, in the character of a lover and a friend. To his friend Lord Southampton, it appears many of them were addressed; and probably others in the Earl's name to the beautiful Elizabeth Vernon, to whom that nobleman was so long and so tenderly attached; and his marriage with whom, after four years patient submission to the will of the Queen, lost him well nigh his head. The remainder of the Sonnets were probably all addressed to her, of whom we scarcely know any thing, but that her hair and eyes were dark, and that she was a musical performer. This we gather from the Sonnets, and this is absolutely all we know of her who exercised so powerful a sway over the mighty mind and heart of Shakspere. He died on the anniversary of his birth-day, April 23rd, 1616.
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 fixèd mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle'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.
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