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LXV



Since brass, 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 battering 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 shine bright.

 	--William Shakespeare

XX



A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,

Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;

A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted

With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue all 'hues' in his controlling,

Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created;

Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated,

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

  But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,

  Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXII



If thou survive my well-contented day,

When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover

And shalt by fortune once more re-survey

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,

Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,

And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,

Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:

'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,

A dearer birth than this his love had brought,

To march in ranks of better equipage:

  But since he died and poets better prove,

  Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.

 	--William Shakespeare