Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not faid,
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,
To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might:
So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,
To-morrow fee again, and do not kill
The fpirit of love with a perpetual dulness.
Let this fad interim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore, where two contracted-new
Come daily to the banks, that, when they fee
Return of love, more bleft may be the view:
Or call it winter, which being full of care,
Makes fummer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare.
Being your flave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your defire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor fervices to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I, my fovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of abfence four,
When you have bid your fervant once adieu;
Nor dare I queftion with my jealous thought,
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a fad flave, ftay and think of nought,
Save, where you are how happy you make those:
So true a fool is love, that in your will
(Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.
That God forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vaffal, bound to stay your leisure!
Oh let me fuffer (being at your beck)
The imprison'd abfence of your liberty,
And patience, tame to fufferance, bide each check
Without accufing you of injury.
Be where you lift; your charter is so strong,
That you yourself may privilege your time:
Do what you will, to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting fo be hell;
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well,
If there be nothing new, but that, which is,
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
Which labouring for invention bear amifs
The fecond burden of a former child?
O that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the fun,
Show me your image in fome antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might fee what the old world could fay
To this compofed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the fame.
O! fure I am, the wits of former days
To fubjects worse have given admiring praise.
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled fhore,
So do our minutes haften to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In fequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipfes 'gainst his glory fight,
And time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish fet on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow;
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his fcythe to mow.
And yet, to times in hope, my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, defpite his cruel hand.
Is it thy will, thy image fhould keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Doft thou defire my flumbers should be broken,
While fhadows, like to thee, do mock my fight?
Is it thy fpirit that thou fend'ft from thee
So far from home, into my deeds to pry;
To find out fhames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenour of thy jealousy?
O no! thy love, though much, is not fo great;
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy fake:
For thee watch I, whilst thou doft wake elsewhere, From me far off, with others all-too-near.
Sin of felf-love poffeffeth all mine eye,
And all my foul, and all my every part;
And for this fin there is no remedy,
It is fo grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face fo gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of fuch account,
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths furmount.
But when my glass shows me myself indeed,
'Bated and chopp'd with tan'd antiquity,
Mine own felf-love quite contrary I read,
Self fo felf-loving were iniquity.
'Tis thee (myself) that for myself I praise,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days,
Against my love fhall be, as I am now,
With time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn; When hours have drain'd his blood, and fill'd his brow With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;
And all those beauties, whereof now he's king,
Are vanishing or vanish'd out of fight,
Stealing away the treasure of his fpring;
For fuch a time do I now fortify
Against confounding age's cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My fweet love's beauty, though my lover's life,
His beauty fhall in these black lines be seen,
And they fhall live, and he in them ftill green,
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
The rich proud coft of out-worn bury'd age;
When fometime lofty towers I fee down-ras'd,
And brafs eternal flave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm foil win of the watry main,
Increasing ftore with lofs, and lofs with ftore;
When I have seen fuch interchange of state,
Or ftate itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate-
That time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lofe.
Since brafs, nor ftone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But fad mortality o'er-fways their power,
How with this rage fhall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no ftronger than a flower?
O how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful fiege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack!
Shall time's beft jewel from time's cheft lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his fwift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may ftill fhine bright.
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