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- Edition: The Sonnets
The Sonnets (Modern)
- Texts of this edition
- Facsimiles
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1577When in the chronicle of wasted time
1578I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
1579And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
1580In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights;
1581Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
1582Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
1583I see their antique pen would have expressed
1584Even such a beauty as you master now.
1585So all their praises are but prophecies
1586Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
1587And for they looked but with divining eyes
1588They had not skill enough your worth to sing.
1589 For we which now behold these present days
1590 Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.
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1592Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
1593Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
1594Can yet the lease of my true love control,
1595Supposed as forfeit to a confinèd doom.
1596The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
1597And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
1598Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
1599And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
1600Now with the drops of this most balmy time
1601My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
1602Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
1603While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes;
1604 And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
1605 When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.
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1607What's in the brain that ink may character
1608Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
1609What's new to speak, what now to register,
1610That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
1611Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
1612I must each day say o'er the very same,
1613Counting no old thing old; thou mine, I thine,
1614Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
1615So that eternal love, in love's fresh case,
1616Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
1617Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place
1618But makes antiquity for aye his page,
1619 Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
1620 Where time and outward form would show it dead.