1609
THE SONNETS
by William Shakespeare
1
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That
thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou
contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a
famine where
abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self 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'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
2
When forty winters shall
besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud
livery so gazed on now,
Will be a
tattered weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say within thine own deep
sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou
couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse'
Proving his beauty by
succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.
3
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 renewest,
Thou dost
beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy
husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,
Of his self-love to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime,
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
But if thou live remembered not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
4
Unthrifty
loveliness why dost thou spend,
Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
Then
beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,
The
bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
For having
traffic with thy self alone,
Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What
acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy
unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
Which used lives th'
executor to be.
5
Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that
unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To
hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer's distillation left
A
liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no
remembrance what it was.
But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.
6
Then let not winter's
ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,
With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed:
That use is not
forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the
willing loan;
That's for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair,
To be death's
conquest and make worms thine heir.
7
Lo in the
orient when the
gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth
homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his
sacred majesty,
And having climbed the steep-up
heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet
mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
But when from highmost pitch with weary car,
Like
feeble age he reeleth from the day,
The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:
So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:
Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.
8
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true
concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married do
offend thine ear,
They do but
sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:
Mark how one string sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by
mutual ordering;
Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
Who all in one, one
pleasing note do sing:
Whose
speechless song being many,
seeming one,
Sings this to thee, 'Thou single wilt prove none'.
9
Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,
The world will be thy widow and still weep,
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep,
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept
unused the user so destroys it:
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
10
For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any
Who for thy self art so unprovident.
Grant if thou wilt, thou art
beloved of many,
But that thou none lov'st is most evident:
For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate,
That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,
Seeking that
beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to
repair should be thy chief desire:
O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be as thy presence is
gracious and kind,
Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,
Make thee another self for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.
11
As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st,
In one of thine, from that which thou departest,
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,
Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,
Herein lives
wisdom, beauty, and increase,
Without this folly, age, and cold decay,
If all were
minded so, the times should cease,
And
threescore year would make the world away:
Let those whom nature hath not made for store,
Harsh, featureless, and rude,
barrenly perish:
Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;
Which
bounteous gift thou shouldst in
bounty cherish:
She carved thee for her seal, and meant
thereby,
Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
12
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in
hideous night,
When I behold the
violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white:
When lofty trees I see
barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did
canopy the herd
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow,
And nothing 'gainst Time's
scythe can make defence
Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.
13
O that you were your self, but love you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live,
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet
semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no
determination, then you were
Your self again after your self's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which
husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
And
barren rage of death's
eternal cold?
O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,
You had a father, let your son say so.
14
Not from the stars do I my
judgement pluck,
And yet
methinks I have
astronomy,