The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restored and sorrows end.

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
With all-triumphant splendor on my brow;
But, out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
The region cloud hath masked him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

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

LXXIII

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 ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st 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 see'st 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 nourish'd by.

5

ΙΟ

5

ΙΟ

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

CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove :

O, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken ;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

A MADRIGAL

[From The Passionate Pilgrim]

CRABBED Age and Youth
Cannot live together:

Youth is full of pleasance,

Age is full of care;

Youth like summer morn,

ΙΟ

5

5

WHEN icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit, tu-who!

A merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow

5

IO

And coughing drowns the parson's saw

And birds sit brooding in the snow

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit, tu-who!

A merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

15

And pleased with what he gets,

Come hither! come hither! come hither!

Here shall he see

No enemy,

But winter and rough weather.

ΙΟ

15

BLOW, BLOW, THOU WINTER WIND

[From As You Like It]

BLOW, blow, thou winter wind!

Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.

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.