The mountain or the sea, the day or night,

The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature.

Incapable of more, replete with you,

My most true mind thus makes mine eye untrue.

114

Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you,

Drink up the monarch’s plague, this flattery,

Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,

And that your love taught it this alchemy,

To make of monsters and things indigest

Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,

Creating every bad a perfect best

As fast as objects to his beams assemble?

O, ‘tis the first, ’tis flatt‘ry in my seeing,

And my great mind most kingly drinks it up.

Mine eye well knows what with his gust is ’greeing,

And to his palate doth prepare the cup.

If it be poisoned, ’tis the lesser sin

That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

115

Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

Even those that said I could not love you dearer;

Yet then my judgement knew no reason why

My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.

But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents

Creep in ‘twixt vows and change decrees of kings,

Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,

Divert strong minds to th’ course of alt‘ring things—

Alas, why, fearing of time’s tyranny,

Might I not then say ‘Now I love you best‘,

When I was certain o’er incertainty,

Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?

Love is a babe; then might I not say so,

To give full growth to that which still doth grow.

116

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 fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring barque,

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.

117

Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all

Wherein I should your great deserts repay,

Forgot upon your dearest love to call

Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

That I have frequent been with unknown minds,

And given to time your own dear-purchased right;

That I have hoisted sail to all the winds

Which should transport me farthest from your sight.

Book both my wilfulness and errors down,

And on just proof surmise accumulate;

Bring me within the level of your frown,

But shoot not at me in your wakened hate,

Since my appeal says I did strive to prove

The constancy and virtue of your love.

118

Like as, to make our appetites more keen,

With eager compounds we our palate urge;

As to prevent our maladies unseen

We sicken to shun sickness when we purge:

Even so, being full of your ne‘er cloying sweetness,

To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding,

And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness

To be diseased ere that there was true needing.

Thus policy in love, t’anticipate

The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,

And brought to medicine a healthful state

Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured.

But thence I learn, and find the lesson true:

Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

119

What potions have I drunk of siren tears

Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,

Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,

Still losing when I saw myself to win!

What wretched errors hath my heart committed

Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!

How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted

In the distraction of this madding fever!

O benefit of ill! Now I find true

That better is by evil still made better,

And ruined love when it is built anew

Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.

So I return rebuked to my content,

And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.

120

That you were once unkind befriends me now,

And for that sorrow which I then did feel

Needs must I under my transgression bow,

Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.

For if you were by my unkindness shaken

As I by yours, you’ve past a hell of time,

And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.