The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Chapter 3 : 59 If there be nothing new, but that which is, Hath been before, how are our brains begu

59 If there be nothing new, but that which is, Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled, Which labouring for invention bear amis The second burthen of a former child!

O 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, To this composed wonder of your frame, Whether we are mended, or whether better they, Or whether revolution be the same.

O sure I am the wits of former days, To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

60 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled sh.o.r.e, So do our minutes hasten to their end, Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity 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, And 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.

61 Is it thy will, thy image should keep open My heavy eyelids to the weary night?

Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken, While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?

Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee So far from home into my deeds to pry, To find out shames and idle hours in me, The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?

O no, thy love though much, is not so great, It is my love that keeps mine eye awake, Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, To play the watchman ever for thy sake.

For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, From me far off, with others all too near.

62 Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye, And all my soul, and all my every part; And for this sin there is no remedy, It is so grounded inward in my heart.

Methinks no face so gracious is as mine, No shape so true, no truth of such account, And for my self mine own worth do define, As I all other in all worths surmount.

But when my gla.s.s shows me my self indeed beated and chopt with tanned antiquity, Mine own self-love quite contrary I read: Self, so self-loving were iniquity.

'Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise, Painting my age with beauty of thy days.

63 Against my love shall be as I am now With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn, When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn Hath travelled on to age's steepy night, And all those beauties whereof now he's king Are vanis.h.i.+ng, or vanished out of sight, Stealing away the treasure of his spring: For such a time do I now fortify Against confounding age's cruel knife, That he shall never cut from memory My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life.

His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, And they shall live, and he in them still green.

64 When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age, When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased, And bra.s.s eternal slave to mortal rage.

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the sh.o.r.e, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.

When I have seen such interchange of State, Or state it self confounded, to decay, Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate That Time will come and take my love away.

This thought is as a death which cannot choose But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.

65 Since bra.s.s, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o'ersways 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 wrackful siege of batt'ring 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 s.h.i.+ne bright.

66 Tired with all these for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed 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 miscalled 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.

67 Ah wherefore with infection should he live, And with his presence grace impiety, That sin by him advantage should achieve, And lace it self with his society?

Why should false painting imitate his cheek, And steal dead seeming of his living hue?

Why should poor beauty indirectly seek, Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?

Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is, Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins, For she hath no exchequer now but his, And proud of many, lives upon his gains?

O him she stores, to show what wealth she had, In days long since, before these last so bad.

68 Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, When beauty lived and died as flowers do now, Before these b.a.s.t.a.r.d signs of fair were born, Or durst inhabit on a living brow: Before the golden tresses of the dead, The right of sepulchres, were shorn away, To live a second life on second head, Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay: In him those holy antique hours are seen, Without all ornament, it self and true, Making no summer of another's green, Robbing no old to dress his beauty new, And him as for a map doth Nature store, To show false Art what beauty was of yore.

69 Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view, Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend: All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due, Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.

Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned, But those same tongues that give thee so thine own, In other accents do this praise confound By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.

They look into the beauty of thy mind, And that in guess they measure by thy deeds, Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind) To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds: But why thy odour matcheth not thy show, The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.

70 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 wooed of time, For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.

Thou hast pa.s.sed by the ambush of young days, Either not a.s.sailed, or victor being charged, Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise, To tie up envy, evermore enlarged, If some suspect of ill masked not thy show, Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.

71 No longer mourn for me when I am dead, Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: Nay if you read this line, remember not, The hand that writ it, for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O if (I say) you look upon this verse, When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehea.r.s.e; But let your love even with my life decay.

Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone.

72 O lest the world should task you to recite, What merit lived in me that you should love After my death (dear love) forget me quite, For you in me can nothing worthy prove.

Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, To do more for me than mine own desert, And hang more praise upon deceased I, Than n.i.g.g.ard truth would willingly impart: O lest your true love may seem false in this, That you for love speak well of me untrue, My name be buried where my body is, And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.

For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

73 That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou seest the twilight of such day, As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self that seals up all in rest.

In me thou seest the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed, whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

74 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.

75 So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground; And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.

Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure, Now counting best to be with you alone, Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure, Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look, Possessing or pursuing no delight Save what is had, or must from you be took.

Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

76 Why is my verse so barren of new pride?

So far from variation or quick change?

Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my name, Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

O know sweet love I always write of you, And you and love are still my argument: So all my best is dressing old words new, Spending again what is already spent: For as the sun is daily new and old, So is my love still telling what is told.