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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, |