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My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason;
But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her-love, for whose dear love I rise and fall,

CLII.

In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is lost :
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them swear against the thing they see;
For I have sworn thee fair: more perjur'd I,
To swear, against the truth, so foul a lie!

CLIII.

Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep :
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrow'd from this holy fire of love
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fir'd,
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;

I, sick withal, the help of bath desir'd,
And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,
But found no cure: the bath for my help lies
Where Cupid got new fire,—my mistress' eyes.

CLIV.

The little love-god, lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire

Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;
And so the general of hot desire

Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy

For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

End of the Sonnets,

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

A LOVER'S COMPLAINT.

FROM off a hill whose concave womb re-worded a
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,

My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laidb to list the sad-tun'd tale :
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
The carcase of a beauty spent and done.
Time had not scythed all that youth begun,

Nor youth all quit: but, spite of Heaven's fell rage,
Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.

e

Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,d
Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted' in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.

a Re-worded-echoed.

b Laid. So the original. But it is usually more correctly printed lay. The idiomatic grammar of Shakspere's age ought

not to be removed.

Napkin-handkerchief.

d Conceited characters-fanciful figures worked on the handkerchief.

e Laund'ring-washing.

f Pelleted-formed into pellets, or small balls.

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