The Sonnets (Modern)
Not Peer Reviewed
¶
124
¶If my dear love were but the child of state
¶It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,
¶As subject to time's love or to time's hate,
1850Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
¶No, it was builded far from accident;
¶It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
¶Under the blow of thrallèd discontent,
¶Whereto th'inviting time our fashion calls:
1855It fears not policy, that heretic,
¶Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,
¶But all alone stands hugely politic,
¶That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
¶_To this I witness call the fools of time,
1860_Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
¶
125
¶Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,
¶With my extern the outward honoring,
¶Or laid great bases for eternity,
1865Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
¶Have I not seen dwellers on form and favor
¶Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
¶For compound sweet forgoing simple savor,
¶Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?
1870No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
¶And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
¶Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
¶But mutual render, only me for thee.
¶_Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul
1875_When most impeached, stands least in thy control.
¶
126
¶O thou my lovely boy who in thy power
¶Dost hold time's fickle glass, his sickle hour,
¶Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
1880Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.
¶If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
¶As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,
¶She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
¶May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.
1885Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure:
¶She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure!
¶Her audit, though delayed, answered must be,
¶And her quietus is to render thee.