Calling to mind, since first my love begun,
Th'uncertain times oft varying in their course,
How things still unexpectedly have run,
As it please the Fates, by their resistless force.
Lastly mine eyes amazedly have seen
Essex' great fall, Tyrone his peace to gain;
The quiet end of that long-living Queen;
This King's fair entrance; and our peace with Spain,
We and the Dutch at length ourselves to sever.
Thus the world doth and evermore shall reel;
Yet to my Goddess am I constant ever,
Howe'er blind Fortune turn her giddy wheel.

Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew
Whose short refresh upon the tender green
Cheers for a time but till the Sun doth show,
And straight 'tis gone as it had never been.
Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish;
Short is the glory of the blushing Rose,
The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish
Yet which at length thou must be forc'd to lose.
When thou surcharg'd with burden of thy years
Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth,
When Time hath made a passport for thy fears,

As in some countries far remote from hence
The wretched creature destined to die,
Having the judgement due to his offence,
By surgeons begg'd, their art on him to try,
Which, on the living, work without remorse,
First make incision on each mastering vein,
Then staunch the bleeding, then trasnpierce the corse,
And with their balms recure the wounds again,
Then poison and with physic him restore;
Not that they fear the hopeless man to kill,
But their experience to increase the more;
Ev'n so my mistress works upon my ill,

Ye, who in alleys green and leafy bow'rs,
Sport, the rude children of fantastic birth;
Where frolic nymphs, and shaggy tribes of mirth,
In clam'rous revels waste the midnight hours;
Who, link'd in flaunting bands of mountain flow'rs,
Weave your wild mazes o'er the dewy earth,
Ere the fierce Lord of Lustre rushes forth,
And o'er the world his beamy radiance pours!
Oft has your clanking cymbal's madd'ning strain,
Loud ringing through the torch-illumin'd grove,
Lur'd my lov'd Phaon from the youthful train,

Queen Virtue's court, which some call Stella's face,
Prepar'd by Nature's choicest furniture,
Hath his front built of alabaster pure;
Gold in the covering of that stately place.

The door by which sometimes comes forth her Grace
Red porphir is, which lock of pearl makes sure,
Whose porches rich (which name of cheeks endure)
Marble mix'd red and white do interlace.

The windows now through which this heav'nly guest
Looks o'er the world, and can find nothing such,
Which dare claim from those lights the name of best,

If this be love, to draw a weary breath,
Paint on floods, till the shore, cry to th'air,
With downward looks still reading on the earth,
The sad memorials of my love's despair.
If this be love, to war against my soul,
Lie down to wail, rise up to sigh and grieve me,
The never-resting stone of care to roll,
Still to complain my griefs, and none relieve me.
If this be love, to clothe me with dark thoughts,
Haunting untrodden paths to wail apart,
My pleasures horror, music tragic notes,
Tears in my eyes, and sorrow at my heart.

Can it be right to give what I can give?
To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears
As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years
Re-sighing on my lips renunciative
Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live
For all thy adjurations? O my fears,
That this can scarce be right! We are not peers,
So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,
That givers of such gifts as mine are, must
Be counted with the ungenerous. Out, alas!
I will not soil thy purple with my dust,
Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,

As other men, so I myself do muse
Why in this sort I wrest invention so,
And why these giddy metaphors I use,
Leaving the path the greater part do go.
I will resolve you: I am lunatic,
And ever this in madmen you shall find,
What they last thought of when the brain grew sick
In most distraction they keep that in mind.
Thus talking idly in this bedlam fit,
Reason and I, you must conceive, are twain;
"Tis nine years now since first I lost my wit;
Bear with me then, though troubled be my brain.

Amid the florid multitude her face
Was like the full moon seen behind the lace
Of orchard boughs where clouded blossoms part
When Spring shines in the world and in the heart.
As the full-moon-beams to the ferny floor
Of summer woods through flower and foliage pour,
So to my being's innermost recess
Flooded the light of so much loveliness;
She held as in a vase of priceless ware
The wine that over arid ways and bare
My youth was the pathetic thirsting for,
And where she moved the veil of Nature grew

Why, when I gaze on Phaon's beauteous eyes,
Why does each thought in wild disorder stray?
Why does each fainting faculty decay,
And my chill'd breast in throbbing tumults rise?
Mute, on the ground my Lyre neglected lies,
The Muse forgot, and lost the melting lay;
My down-cast looks, my faultering lips betray,
That stung by hopeless passion,--Sappho dies!
Now, on a bank of Cypress let me rest;
Come, tuneful maids, ye pupils of my care,
Come, with your dulcet numbers soothe my breast;
And, as the soft vibrations float on air,