OF THESE ENSUING SONNETS,
AND THAT ETERNITY PROMISED
FROM faireft creatures we defire increase,
That thereby beauty's rofe might never die,
But as the riper fhould by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'ft thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy fweet felf too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'ft waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee..
When forty winters fhall befiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, fo gaz'd on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed, of fmall worth held :
Then being afk'd where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lufty days;
To fay, within thine own deep-funken eyes,
Were an all-eating fhame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deferv'd thy beauty's use,
If thou could'st answer-" This fair child of mine
Shall fum my count, and make my old excufe—"
Proving his beauty by fucceffion thine.
This were to be new-made when thou art old,
And fee thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.
Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not reneweft,
Thou doft beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair, whose un-eard womb
Difdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he fo fond, will be the tomb
Of his felf-love, to stop pofterity?
Thou art thy mother's glafs, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime:
So thou through windows of thine age fhalt fee,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
Die fingle, and thine image dies with thee.
Unthrifty lovelinefs, why doft thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank, fhe lends to thofe are free.
Then, beauteous niggard, why doft thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitlefs ufurer, why doft thou use
great a fum of fums, yet canft not live?
For having traffick with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy fweet felf doft deceive.
Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canft thou leave?,
Thy unus'd beauty must be tomb'd with thee,
Which, used, lives thy executor to be.
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very fame,
And that unfair which fairly doth excell;
For never-refting time leads fummer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
Sap check'd with froft, and lufty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'erfnow'd, and bareness every where:
Then, were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prifoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers diftill'd, though they with winter meet,
Leefe but their fhow; their fubftance ftill lives fweet.
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