(LXX)

HAT thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,

A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.

So thou be good, slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater, being wooed of Time;
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present'st a pure unstainèd prime.
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,
Either not assailed, or victor being charged;
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy, evermore enlarged:

If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,

Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.

(LXXI)

O longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it; for I love you so

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
your love even with my life decay:
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

But let

And mock you with me after I am gone.

cold,

(LXXIII)

HAT time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the

Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

sang:

Consumed with that which it was nourished by:

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more

strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

(xc)

HEN hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,

And do not drop in for an after-loss :

Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe;

Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset come; so I shall taste

At first the very worst of fortune's might;

And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,

Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.

(XCIV)

HEY that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,

Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,

Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow,—

They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die;

But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed out-braves his dignity :

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.