The Sonnets (Modern)
Not Peer Reviewed
855
58
¶That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
¶I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
¶Or at your hand th'account of hours to crave,
¶Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.
860Oh, let me suffer, being at your beck,
¶Th'imprisoned absence of your liberty,
¶And patience-tame to sufferance bide each check,
¶Without accusing you of injury.
¶Be where you list, your charter is so strong
865That you yourself may privilege your time
¶To what you will; to you it doth belong
¶Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
¶_I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
¶_Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.
870
59
¶If there be nothing new, but that which is
¶Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
¶Which, laboring for invention, bear amiss
¶The second burden of a former child?
875Oh, that record could with a backward look,
¶Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
¶Show me your image in some antique book,
¶Since mind at first in character was done,
¶That I might see what the old world could say
880To this composèd wonder of your frame;
¶Whether we are mended, or whe'er better they,
¶Or whether revolution be the same.
¶_Oh, sure I am, the wits of former days
¶_To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
885
60
¶Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
¶So do our minutes hasten to their end,
¶Each changing place with that which goes before,
¶In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
890Nativity, once in the main of light,
¶Crawls to maturity; wherewith, being crowned,
¶Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
¶And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
¶Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
895And 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.