The Sonnets

109

O never say that I was false of heart,

Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,

As easy might I from my self depart,

As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:

That is my home of love, if I have ranged,

Like him that travels I return again,

Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,

So that my self bring water for my stain,

Never believe though in my nature reigned,

All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,

That it could so preposterously be stained, 

To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:

For nothing this wide universe I call,

Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all.

110

Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there,

And made my self a motley to the view,

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

Made old offences of affections new.

Most true it is, that I have looked on truth

Askance and strangely: but by all above,

These blenches gave my heart another youth,

And worse essays proved thee my best of love.

Now all is done, have what shall have no end,

Mine appetite I never more will grind

On newer proof, to try an older friend,

A god in love, to whom I am confined.

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

111

O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

That did not better for my life provide,

Than public means which public manners breeds.

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

And almost thence my nature is subdued

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:

Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,

Whilst like a willing patient I will drink,

Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection,

No bitterness that I will bitter think,

Nor double penance to correct correction.

Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,

Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

112

Your love and pity doth th' impression fill,

Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,

For what care I who calls me well or ill, 

So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?

You are my all the world, and I must strive,

To know my shames and praises from your tongue,

None else to me, nor I to none alive,

That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.

In so profound abysm I throw all care

Of others' voices, that my adder's sense,

To critic and to flatterer stopped are:

Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.

You are so strongly in my purpose bred,

That all the world besides methinks are dead.

113

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,

And that which governs me to go about,

Doth part his function, and is partly blind,

Seems seeing, but effectually is out:

For it no form delivers to the heart

Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,

Of his quick objects hath the mind no part, 

Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:

For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,

The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,

The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:

The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.

Incapable of more, replete with you,

My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.

114

Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you

Drink up the monarch's plague this flattery?

Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,

And that your love taught it this alchemy?

To make of monsters, and things indigest,

Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,

Creating every bad a perfect best

As fast as objects to his beams assemble:

O 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,

And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,

Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, 

And to his palate doth prepare the cup.

If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,

That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

115

Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

Even those that said I could not love you dearer,

Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,

My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,

But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents

Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,

Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,

Divert strong minds to the course of alt'ring things:

Alas why fearing of time's tyranny,

Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'

When I was certain o'er incertainty,

Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?

Love is a babe, then might I not say so

To give full growth to that which still doth grow.

116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments, love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come,

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

117

Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,

Wherein I should your great deserts repay,

Forgot upon your dearest love to call, 

Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,

That I have frequent been with unknown minds,

And given to time your own dear-purchased right,