From fairest creatures we desire increase,That thereby beauty’s rose might never die

When forty winters shall besiege thy browAnd dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewestNow is the time that face should form another

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spendUpon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?

Those hours that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell

Then let not winter’s ragged hand defaceIn thee thy summer ere thou be distilled.

Lo, in the orient when the gracious lightLifts up his burning head, each under eye

Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye That thou consum’st thyself in single life?

For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any,Who for thyself art so unprovident.

As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow’st In one of thine, from that which thou departest;

When I do count the clock that tells the time And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,

O, that you were your self! But, love, you are No longer yours than you yourself here live;

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck, And yet methinks I have astronomy—

When I consider everything that growsHolds in perfection but a little moment,

But wherefore do not you a mightier way Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time,

Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws And make the Earth devour her own sweet brood;

The poet fantasizes that the young man’s beauty is the result of Nature’s changing her mind: she began to create a beautiful woman,

So is it not with me as with that museStirred by a painted beauty to his verse,

My glass shall not persuade me I am old So long as youth and thou are of one date,

As an unperfect actor on the stageWho with his fear is put beside his part,

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart;

Let those who are in favor with their starsOf public honor and proud titles boast,

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalageThy merit hath my duty strongly knit,

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,The dear repose for limbs with travel tired,

How can I then return in happy plight That am debarred the benefit of rest,

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state,

When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI summon up remembrance of things past,

Thy bosom is endearèd with all heartsWhich I by lacking have supposèd dead,

If thou survive my well-contented day When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,

Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day And make me travel forth without my cloak,

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done. Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;

Let me confess that we two must be twain Although our undivided loves are one;

As a decrepit father takes delightTo see his active child do deeds of youth,

How can my muse want subject to invent While thou dost breathe that pour’st into my verse

O, how thy worth with manners may I sing When thou art all the better part of me?

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all. What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits When I am sometime absent from thy heart,

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected;

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way,

The other two, slight air and purging fire, Are both with thee, wherever I abide;

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war How to divide the conquest of thy sight.

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other.

How careful was I, when I took my way, Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,

Against that time, if ever that time come, When I shall see thee frown on my defects,

How heavy do I journey on the way, When what I seek, my weary travel’s end,

Thus can my love excuse the slow offense Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:

So am I as the rich whose blessèd key Can bring him to his sweet up-lockèd treasure,

What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.

Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,

Sweet love, renew thy force. Be it not said Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,

Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire?

That god forbid, that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure,

If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end,

Is it thy will thy image should keep open My heavy eyelids to the weary night?

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye And all my soul and all my every part;

Against my love shall be, as I am now, With Time’s injurious hand crushed and o’erworn;

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defacedThe rich proud cost of outworn buried age;

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea But sad mortality o’ersways their power,

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry: As, to behold desert a beggar born,

Ah, wherefore with infection should he live, And with his presence grace impiety,

Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,

Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend.

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair.

No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

O, lest the world should task you to reciteWhat merit lived in me that you should love,

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

But be contented when that fell arrest Without all bail shall carry me away,

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;

Why is my verse so barren of new pride, So far from variation or quick change?

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;

So oft have I invoked thee for my museAnd found such fair assistance in my verse

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;

O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,

Or I shall live your epitaph to make Or you survive when I in earth am rotten.

I grant thou wert not married to my muse, And therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook

I never saw that you did painting need And therefore to your fair no painting set.

Who is it that says most, which can say more Than this rich praise, that you alone are you,

My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still While comments of your praise, richly compiled,

Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you,

Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing,And like enough thou know’st thy estimate.

When thou shalt be disposed to set me light And place my merit in the eye of scorn,

Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, And I will comment upon that offense;

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

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force,

But do thy worst to steal thyself away, For term of life thou art assurèd mine,

So shall I live, supposing thou art true, Like a deceivèd husband; so love’s face

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

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,

Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport.

How like a winter hath my absence beenFrom thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,

The forward violet thus did I chide: “Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

Where art thou, muse, that thou forget’st so long To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?

O truant muse, what shall be thy amendsFor thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?

My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear.

Alack, what poverty my muse brings forth, That, having such a scope to show her pride,

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,For as you were when first your eye I eyed,

Let not my love be called idolatry, Nor my belovèd as an idol show,

When in the chronicle of wasted timeI see descriptions of the fairest wights,

Not mine own fears nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come

What’s in the brain that ink may characterWhich hath not figured to thee my true spirit?

O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seemed my flame to qualify;

Alas, ’tis true, I have gone here and there And made myself a motley to the view,

O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

Your love and pity doth th’ impression fill Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind, And that which governs me to go about

Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you, Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery?

Those lines that I before have writ do lie, Even those that said I could not love you dearer;

Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not love

Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all Wherein I should your great deserts repay,

Like as to make our appetites more keen With eager compounds we our palate urge;

What potions have I drunk of siren tearsDistilled from limbecks foul as hell within,

That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow which I then did feel

’Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,When not to be receives reproach of being,

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brainFull charactered with lasting memory,

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change.Thy pyramids built up with newer might

If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for fortune’s bastard be unfathered,

Were ’t aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honoring,

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time’s fickle glass, his sickle hour;

In the old age, black was not counted fair, Or, if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;

How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st Upon that blessèd wood whose motion sounds

Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and, till action, lust

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me.

So, now I have confessed that he is thine And I myself am mortgaged to thy will,

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,And will to boot, and will in overplus.

If thy soul check thee that I come so near,Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy will,

Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyesThat they behold and see not what they see?

When my love swears that she is made of truth I do believe her though I know she lies,

O, call not me to justify the wrong That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;

Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain,

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,For they in thee a thousand errors note;

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving.

Lo, as a careful huswife runs to catch One of her feathered creatures broke away,

Two loves I have, of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still.

Those lips that Love’s own hand did make Breathed forth the sound that said “I hate”

Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth, Pressed with these rebel powers that thee array,

My love is as a fever, longing stillFor that which longer nurseth the disease,

O me, what eyes hath love put in my head, Which have no correspondence with true sight!

Canst thou, O cruel, say I love thee not When I against myself with thee partake?

O, from what power hast thou this powerful might With insufficiency my heart to sway?

Love is too young to know what conscience is; Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?

In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn, But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;

Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep. A maid of Dian’s this advantage found,

The little love-god, lying once asleep,Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,