sonnet 25
- Let those who are in favour with their stars
- Of public honour and proud titles boast,
- Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
- Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
- Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
- But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
- And in themselves their pride lies buried,
- For at a frown they in their glory die.
- The painful warrior famoused for fight,
- After a thousand victories once foil'd,
- Is from the book of honour razed quite,
- And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:
- Then happy I, that love and am beloved
- Where I may not remove nor be removed.
sonnet 60
- Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore,
- So do our minutes hasten to their end;
- Each changing place with that which goes before,
- In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
- Nativity, once in the main of light,
- Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
- Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
- And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
- Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
- And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
- Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
- And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
- And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
- Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
sonnet 64
- When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd
- The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
- When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras'd
- And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
- When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
- Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
- And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main,
- Increasing store with loss and loss with store;
- When I have seen such interchange of state,
- Or state itself confounded to decay;
- Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
- That Time will come and take my love away.
- This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
- But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
sonnet 106
- 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 you 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.
sonnet 107
- Not 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,
- Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.
- The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd
- And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
- Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd
- 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.
sonnet 148
- O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,
- Which have no correspondence with true sight;
- Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
- That censures falsely what they see aright?
- If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
- What means the world to say it is not so?
- If it be not, then love doth well denote
- Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,
- How can it? O! how can Love's eye be true,
- That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
- No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
- The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.
- O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
- Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.