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  • Title: Shake-speares Sonnets (Quarto 1, 1609)
  • Editors: Hardy M. Cook, Ian Lancashire

    • Copyright Hardy M. Cook and Ian Lancashire. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editors: Hardy M. Cook, Ian Lancashire
    Peer Reviewed

    Shake-speares Sonnets (Quarto 1, 1609)

    454
    VNthrifty louelinesse why dost thou spend,
    Vpon thy selfe thy beauties legacy?
    Natures bequest giues nothing but doth lend,
    And being franck she lends to those are free:
    50Then beautious nigard why doost thou abuse,
    The bountious largesse giuen thee to giue?
    Profitles vserer why doost thou vse
    So great a summe of summes yet can'st not liue?
    For hauing traffike with thy selfe alone,
    55Thou of thy selfe thy sweet selfe dost deceaue,
    Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
    What acceptable Audit can'st thou leaue?
    Thy vnus'd beauty must be tomb'd with thee,
    Which vsed liues th'executor to be.
    605
    THose howers that with gentle worke did frame,
    The louely gaze where euery eye doth dwell
    Will play the tirants to the very same,
    And that vnfaire which fairely doth excell:
    65For neuer resting time leads Summer on,
    To hidious winter and confounds him there,
    Sap checkt with frost and lustie leau's quite gon.
    Beauty ore-snow'd and barenes euery where,
    Then were not summers distillation left
    70A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glasse,
    Beauties effect with beauty were bereft,
    Nor it nor noe remembrance what it was.
    But flowers distil'd though they with winter meete,
    Leese but their show, their substance still liues sweet.
    756
    THen let not winters wragged hand deface,
    In thee thy summer ere thou be distil'd:
    Make sweet some viall;treasure thou some place,
    With beautits treasure ere it be selfe kil'd:
    80That vse is not forbidden vsery,
    Which happies those that pay the willing lone;
    That's for thy selfe to breed an other thee,
    Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
    Ten times thy selfe were happier then thou art,
    85If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee,
    Then what could death doe if thou should'st depart,
    Leauing thee liuing in posterity?
    Be not selfe-wild for thou art much too faire,
    To be deaths conquest and make wormes thine heire.
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