WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rhyme In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express'd Even such a beauty as your master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring;

And, for they look'd but with divining eyes, They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

For we, which now behold these present days,

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

Nor mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to

come,

Can yet the lease of my true love control,

Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured

And the sad augurs mock their own presage; Incertainties now crown themselves assured, And peace proclaims olives of endless age. Now with the drops of this most balmy time My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,

Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme, While he insults o'er dull and speechless

tribes:

And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass

are spent.

O, NEVER say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify, As easy might I from myself 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 myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature reign'd
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stain'd,
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.

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-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken : It is the star to every wandering 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.

THE expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this

hell.