And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,*
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.
How can I then return in happy plight,
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day's oppression is not eased by night,
But day by night, and night by day oppressed;
And each, though enemies to either's reign,
Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee?
I tell the day, to please him, thou art bright,
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
So flatter I the swart-complexioned night;
When sparkling stars twire† not, thou gild'st the even.
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
* Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night,
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.
To peep out; also, to twinkle, or gleam.
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee; and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate:*
For thy sweet love remembered, such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight;†
Then can I grieve at grievances fore-gone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored, and sorrows end.
Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
* Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings,
The morn not waking till she sings.
LYLY-Alex. and Camp. v. 1.
Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise.-Cymbeline, ii. 3.
That singing up to heaven's gate ascend.
+ It may be conjectured from the context that sight is here employed for sigh, for the convenience of the rhyme. The usage is not without precedent and authority. Many similar examples occur in the writings of an age when neither orthography nor pronunciation appears to have been fixed. Malone observes that Spenser used sight for sighed; but that would have been correct by analogy-as in a multitude of cases in which the past participle was formed by the addition of the t.
And there reigns love, and all love's loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious* tear
Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things removed, that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
That due of many now is thine alone.
Their images I loved I view in thee;
And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.
If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
Compare them with the bettering of the time;
And though they be outstripped by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought!
'Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
To march in ranks of better equipage:
But since he died, and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
* Referring to the obsequies for the dead.
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
With all triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out, alack! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud* hath masked him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak,
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross.
Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done :
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorising thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:
*The cloud of this region or country.'-MALONE. expression occurs in Hamlet-the region kite.' It is possible, however, that the word may be a misprint for 'regent,' which would carry out the image of the 'sovereign' sun, and the cloud that intercepted it, and occupied its place.
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,*
(Thy adverse party is thy advocate)
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate,
That I an accessory needs must be
To that sweet thief, which sourly robs from me.
36
Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite;+
Which, though it alter not love's sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailèd guilt should do thee shame;
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
But do not so: I love thee in such sort,
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
37
As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame‡ by fortune's dearest § spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
* Malone considers this line unintelligible, and suggests that we should read I bring incense.' But the meaning is sufficiently obvious -'I bring in my reason to excuse thy fault, and to commence a plea against myself as being as much in fault as thou art.'
A spite that separates us.
It has been supposed, somewhat rashly, from this passage, that Shakspeare was really lame, although, as Mr. Brown observes, the poet also says, a few lines after, 'So then I am not lame,' which ought to set him on his legs again. § Excessive.
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