Reading Help THE SONNETS

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` THE SONNETS `
` by William Shakespeare `
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` I `
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` From fairest creatures we desire increase, `
` That thereby beauty's rose might never die, `
` But as the riper should by time decease, `
` His tender heir might bear his memory: `
` But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes, `
` Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, `
` Making a famine where abundance lies, `
` Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel: `
` Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament, `
` And only herald to the gaudy spring, `
` Within thine own bud buriest thy content, `
` And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding: `
` Pity the world, or else this glutton be, `
` To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. `
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` II `
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` When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, `
` And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, `
` Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now, `
` Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held: `
` Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies, `
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` Where all the treasure of thy lusty days; `
` To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes, `
` Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise. `
` How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use, `
` If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine `
` Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,' `
` Proving his beauty by succession thine! `
` This were to be new made when thou art old, `
` And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold. `
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` III `
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` Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest `
` Now is the time that face should form another; `
` Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, `
` Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. `
` For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb `
` Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? `
` Or who is he so fond will be the tomb, `
` Of his self-love to stop posterity? `
` Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee `
` Calls back the lovely April of her prime; `
` So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, `
` Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time. `
` But if thou live, remember'd not to be, `
` Die single and thine image dies with thee. `
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` IV `
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` Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend `
` Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy? `
` Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, `
` And being frank she lends to those are free: `
` Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse `
` The bounteous largess given thee to give? `
` Profitless usurer, why dost thou use `
` So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live? `
` For having traffic with thy self alone, `
` Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive: `
` Then how when nature calls thee to be gone, `
` What acceptable audit canst thou leave? `
` Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee, `
` Which, used, lives th' executor to be. `
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` V `
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` Those hours, that with gentle work did frame `
` The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, `
` Will play the tyrants to the very same `
` And that unfair which fairly doth excel; `
` For never-resting time leads summer on `
` To hideous winter, and confounds him there; `
` Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone, `
` Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where: `
` Then were not summer's distillation left, `
` A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, `
` Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, `
` Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was: `
` But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet, `
` Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet. `
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` VI `
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` Then let not winter's ragged hand deface, `
` In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd: `
` Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place `
` With beauty's treasure ere it be self-kill'd. `
` That use is not forbidden usury, `
` Which happies those that pay the willing loan; `
` That's for thy self to breed another thee, `
` Or ten times happier, be it ten for one; `
` Ten times thy self were happier than thou art, `
` If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee: `
` Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart, `
` Leaving thee living in posterity? `
` Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair `
` To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir. `
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` VII `
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` Lo! in the orient when the gracious light `
` Lifts up his burning head, each under eye `
` Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, `
` Serving with looks his sacred majesty; `
` And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill, `
` Resembling strong youth in his middle age, `
` Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, `
` Attending on his golden pilgrimage: `
` But when from highmost pitch, with weary car, `
` Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, `
` The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are `
` From his low tract, and look another way: `
` So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon: `
` Unlook'd, on diest unless thou get a son. `
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` VIII `
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` Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? `
` Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy: `
` Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly, `
` Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy? `
` If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, `
` By unions married, do offend thine ear, `
` They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds `
` In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. `
` Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, `
` Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; `
` Resembling sire and child and happy mother, `
` Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing: `
` Whose speechless song being many, seeming one, `
` Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.' `
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` IX `
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` Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye, `
` That thou consum'st thy self in single life? `
` Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die, `
` The world will wail thee like a makeless wife; `
` The world will be thy widow and still weep `
` That thou no form of thee hast left behind, `
` When every private widow well may keep `
` By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind: `
` Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend `
` Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it; `
` But beauty's waste hath in the world an end, `
` And kept unused the user so destroys it. `
` No love toward others in that bosom sits `
` That on himself such murd'rous shame commits. `
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` X `
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` For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any, `
` Who for thy self art so unprovident. `
` Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many, `
` But that thou none lov'st is most evident: `
` For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate, `
` That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire, `
` Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate `
` Which to repair should be thy chief desire. `
` O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind: `
` Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love? `
` Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind, `
` Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove: `
` Make thee another self for love of me, `
` That beauty still may live in thine or thee. `
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` XI `
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` As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st, `
` In one of thine, from that which thou departest; `
` And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st, `
` Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest, `
` Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase; `
` Without this folly, age, and cold decay: `
` If all were minded so, the times should cease `
` And threescore year would make the world away. `
` Let those whom nature hath not made for store, `
` Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish: `
` Look, whom she best endow'd, she gave thee more; `
` Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish: `
` She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant thereby, `
` Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die. `
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` XII `
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` When I do count the clock that tells the time, `
` And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; `
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