Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remember'd not.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!

This life is most jolly.

THE WORLD'S WAY.

(Hamlet.)

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away. ·

THE WORLD'S WAY.

(Sonnet Lxvi.)

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,—
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,

And art made tongue-tied by authority,

And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,

And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,

And captive Good attending captain Ill:

Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,-
Save that, to die, I leave my Love alone.

10

THE POET'S IMMORTALITY.

(Sonnet Lxxiv.)

But be contented: when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away,

My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.

When thou reviewest this, thou dost review

The very part was consecrate to thee:

The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me:

So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,

The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered.

The worth of that is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.

INEVITABLE SLANDER.

(Sonnet Lxx.)

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,

A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.

So thou be good, slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time;
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,

And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.

Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days
Either not assail'd, or victor being charged;
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy evermore enlarged:

If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show,
Then thou alone kingdoms of heart shouldst owe..

THE UNFADING PICTURE.

(Sonnet Xviii.)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate : Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May And summer's lease hath all too short a date!

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade When in eternal lines to time thou growest!

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this;

and this gives life to thee.

5

SUNSHINE AND CLOUD.

(Sonnet Xxxiii.)

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:

Even so my sun one early morn did shine

But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;

With all-triumphant splendour on my brow;

The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.

10

10

TIME AND LOVE.

(Sonnet Lxv.)

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O, how shall summer's honey-breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my Love may still shine bright.

5

10

THE TRUE AND THE FALSE.

(Sonnet Liv.)

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour which doth in it live:

The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly

When summer's breath their masked buds disclose:

But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,