LX



Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:

  And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.

  Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLVI



Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,

How to divide the conquest of thy sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,

My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,--

A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes--

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To side this title is impannelled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;

And by their verdict is determined

The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part:

  As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,

  And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXX



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 hammer'd steel.

For if you were by my unkindness shaken,

As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time;

And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime.

O! that our night of woe might have remember'd

My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,

And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd

The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!

  But that your trespass now becomes a fee;

  Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXVIII



When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,

And place my merit in the eye of scorn,

Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight,

And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.

With mine own weakness, being best acquainted,

Upon thy part I can set down a story

Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted;

That thou in losing me shalt win much glory: 

And I by this will be a gainer too;

For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,

The injuries that to myself I do,

Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.

  Such is my love, to thee I so belong,

  That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.

 	--William Shakespeare

VI



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.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXVII



Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,

The dear respose for limbs with travel tir'd;

But then begins a journey in my head

To work my mind, when body's work's expired: 

For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--

Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,

Looking on darkness which the blind do see:

Save that my soul's imaginary sight

Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,

Which, like a jewel (hung in ghastly night,

Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.

  Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,

  For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

 	--William Shakespeare

CIX



O! never say that I was false of heart,

Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify,

As easy might I from my self depart

As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:

That is my home of love: if I have rang'd,

Like him that travels, I return again;

Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd,

So that myself bring water for my stain.

Never believe though in my nature reign'd,

All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,

That it could so preposterously be stain'd, 

To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;

  For nothing this wide universe I call,

  Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXIII



No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:

Thy pyramids built up with newer might

To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;

They are but dressings of a former sight.

Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire

What thou dost foist upon us that is old;

And rather make them born to our desire

Than think that we before have heard them told.

Thy registers and thee I both defy,

Not wondering at the present nor the past,

For thy records and what we see doth lie,

Made more or less by thy continual haste.

  This I do vow and this shall ever be;

  I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXI



'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,

When not to be receives reproach of being;

And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd

Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:

For why should others' false adulterate eyes

Give salutation to my sportive blood?

Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

Which in their wills count bad what I think good?

No, I am that I am, and they that level

At my abuses reckon up their own:

I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;

By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;

  Unless this general evil they maintain,

  All men are bad and in their badness reign.

 	--William Shakespeare

XCVI



Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;

Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;

Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less:

Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.

As on the finger of a throned queen

The basest jewel will be well esteem'd,

So are those errors that in thee are seen

To truths translated, and for true things deem'd.

How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,

If like a lamb he could his looks translate!

How many gazers mightst thou lead away,

if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!

  But do not so; I love thee in such sort,

  As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

 	--William Shakespeare

XCIII



So shall I live, supposing thou art true,

Like a deceived husband; so love's face

May still seem love to me, though alter'd new;

Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:

For there can live no hatred in thine eye,

Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.

In many's looks, the false heart's history

Is writ in moods, and frowns, and wrinkles strange. 

But heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;

Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,

Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.

  How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,

  If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!



XCIV



They that have power to hurt, and will do none,

That do not do the thing they most do show,

Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,

Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;

They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,

And husband nature's riches from expense;

They are the lords and owners of their faces,

Others, but stewards of their excellence.

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,

Though to itself, it only live and die,

But if that flower with base infection meet,

The basest weed outbraves his dignity: 

  For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;

  Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.

 	--William Shakespeare

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We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place
for the first time.
T. S. Eliot

Henry David Thoreau
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not
only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of
mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have even lived
a more simple and meagre life than the poor.



Government\'s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short
phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it
stops moving, subsidise it.
Ronald Reagan

LXXXII



I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,

And therefore mayst without attaint o\'erlook

The dedicated words which writers use

Of their fair subject, blessing every book. 

Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,

Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;

And therefore art enforced to seek anew

Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.

And do so, love; yet when they have devis\'d,

What strained touches rhetoric can lend,

Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathiz\'d

In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;

  And their gross painting might be better us\'d

  Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus\'d.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXI



Or I shall live your epitaph to make,

Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;

From hence your memory death cannot take,

Although in me each part will be forgotten.

Your name from hence immortal life shall have,

Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:

The earth can yield me but a common grave,

When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,

Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;

And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,

When all the breathers of this world are dead;

  You still shall live,--such virtue hath my pen,--

  Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXV



So are you to my thoughts as food to life,

Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;

And for the peace of you I hold such strife

As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.

Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;

Now counting best to be with you alone,

Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,

And by and by clean starved for a look;

Possessing or pursuing no delight,

Save what is had, or must from you be took.

  Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,

  Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXV



My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,

While comments of your praise richly compil'd,

Reserve their character with golden quill,

And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.

I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,

And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen'

To every hymn that able spirit affords,

In polish'd form of well-refined pen.

Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,'

And to the most of praise add something more;

But that is in my thought, whose love to you,

Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.

  Then others, for the breath of words respect,

  Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXIX



Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view

Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;

All tongues--the voice of souls--give thee that due,

Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.

Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;

But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,

In other accents do this praise confound

By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.

They look into the beauty of thy mind,

And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;

Then--churls--their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,

To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds: 

  But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,

  The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.

 	--William Shakespeare

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CXLI



In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, 

For they in thee a thousand errors note;

But \'tis my heart that loves what they despise,

Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.

Nor are mine ears with thy tongue\'s tune delighted;

Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,

Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited

To any sensual feast with thee alone:

But my five wits nor my five senses can

Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,

Who leaves unsway\'d the likeness of a man,

Thy proud heart\'s slave and vassal wretch to be:

  Only my plague thus far I count my gain,

  That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXI



Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, 

As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;

For well thou know\'st to my dear doting heart

Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.

Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,

Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;

To say they err I dare not be so bold,

Although I swear it to myself alone.

And to be sure that is not false I swear,

A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,

One on another\'s neck, do witness bear

Thy black is fairest in my judgment\'s place.

  In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,

  And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Action: St. Augustine Quotes
God provides the wind, but man must raise the sails.

CXXXVIII



When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutor\'d youth,

Unlearned in the world\'s false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:

On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:

But wherefore says she not she is unjust? 

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O! love\'s best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love, loves not to have years told:

  Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,

  And in our faults by lies we flatter\'d be.

 	--William Shakespeare

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 splendour on my brow;

But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,

The region cloud hath mask\'d him from me now.

  Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

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

 	--William Shakespeare

LVIII



That god forbid, that made me first your slave,

I should in thought control your times of pleasure,

Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,

Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!

O! let me suffer, being at your beck,

The imprison'd absence of your liberty;

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,

Without accusing you of injury. 

Be where you list, your charter is so strong

That you yourself may privilage your time

To what you will; to you it doth belong

Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.

  I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,

  Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXII



My glass shall not persuade me I am old,

So long as youth and thou are of one date;

But when in thee time's furrows I behold,

Then look I death my days should expiate. 

For all that beauty that doth cover thee,

Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,

Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:

How can I then be elder than thou art?

O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary

As I, not for myself, but for thee will;

Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary

As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

  Presume not on th;heart when mine is slain,

  Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.

 	--William Shakespeare

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My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior
spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive
with our frail and feeble mind. --Albert Einstein

Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and
as deadly as a hit man.
Ronald Reagan

I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say \'he feels
deeply, he feels tenderly.\'
Vincent Van Gogh

Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats
believe every day is April 15.
Ronald Reagan

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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

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 splendour on my brow;

But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,

The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.

  Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

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

 	--William Shakespeare

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LXXVI



Why is my verse so barren of new pride,

So far from variation or quick change?

Why with the time do I not glance aside

To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

O! know sweet love I always write of you,

And you and love are still my argument;

So all my best is dressing old words new,

Spending again what is already spent:

  For as the sun is daily new and old,

  So is my love still telling what is told.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXVII



Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,

The dear respose for limbs with travel tir'd;

But then begins a journey in my head

To work my mind, when body's work's expired: 

For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--

Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,

Looking on darkness which the blind do see:

Save that my soul's imaginary sight

Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,

Which, like a jewel (hung in ghastly night,

Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.

  Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,

  For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

 	--William Shakespeare

CV



Let not my love be call'd idolatry,

Nor my beloved as an idol show,

Since all alike my songs and praises be

To one, of one, still such, and ever so.

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,

Still constant in a wondrous excellence;

Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd,

One thing expressing, leaves out difference.

'Fair, kind, and true,' is all my argument,

'Fair, kind, and true,' varying to other words;

And in this change is my invention spent,

Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.

  Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone,

  Which three till now, never kept seat in one.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXVI



Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,

To thee I send this written embassage,

To witness duty, not to show my wit:

Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine

May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,

But that I hope some good conceit of thine

In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it:

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,

Points on me graciously with fair aspect,

And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:

  Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;

  Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXIV



Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd,

Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;

My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,

And perspective it is best painter's art.

For through the painter must you see his skill,

To find where your true image pictur'd lies,

Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,

That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:

Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun

Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee; 

  Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,

  They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXVII



Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,

Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;

These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,

And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste. 

The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show

Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;

Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know

Time's thievish progress to eternity.

Look! what thy memory cannot contain,

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find

Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,

To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

  Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLIII



When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,

For all the day they view things unrespected;

But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,

And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.

Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,

How would thy shadow's form form happy show

To the clear day with thy much clearer light,

When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! 

How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made

By looking on thee in the living day,

When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade

Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!

  All days are nights to see till I see thee,

  And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

 	--William Shakespeare

LIV



O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.

The canker blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the roses.

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:

But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made: 

  And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

  When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXVII



Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,

Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;

These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,

And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste. 

The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show

Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;

Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know

Time's thievish progress to eternity.

Look! what thy memory cannot contain,

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find

Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,

To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

  Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

 	--William Shakespeare

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T. S. Eliot

XXXV



No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,--

Thy adverse party is thy advocate,--

And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:

Such civil war is in my love and hate,

  That I an accessary needs must be,

  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Love: St. Augustine Quotes
Love is the beauty of the soul.

XXXV



No more be griev\'d at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,--

Thy adverse party is thy advocate,--

And \'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:

Such civil war is in my love and hate,

  That I an accessary needs must be,

  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLV



The other two, slight air, and purging fire

Are both with thee, wherever I abide;

The first my thought, the other my desire,

These present-absent with swift motion slide.

For when these quicker elements are gone

In tender embassy of love to thee,

My life, being made of four, with two alone

Sinks down to death, oppress\'d with melancholy;

Until life\'s composition be recur\'d

By those swift messengers return\'d from thee,

Who even but now come back again, assur\'d,

Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:

  This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,

  I send them back again, and straight grow sad.

 	--William Shakespeare

Founding Fathers Quotes

As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles. First, not being
hereditary, their collective knowledge, wisdom, and virtue are not precarious. For by these qualities alone are they to obtain
their offices, and they will have none of the peculiar qualities and vices of those men who possess power merely because their
father held it before them.
Tench Coxe, An American Citizen, No.2, September 28, 1787

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CI



O truant Muse what shall be thy amends

For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy\'d?

Both truth and beauty on my love depends;

So dost thou too, and therein dignified.

Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,

\'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix\'d;

Beauty no pencil, beauty\'s truth to lay;

But best is best, if never intermix\'d\'?

Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?

Excuse not silence so, for\'t lies in thee

To make him much outlive a gilded tomb

And to be prais\'d of ages yet to be.

  Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how

  To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLIX



Against that time, if ever that time come,

When I shall see thee frown on my defects,

When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,

Call\'d to that audit by advis\'d respects;

Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,

And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,

When love, converted from the thing it was,

Shall reasons find of settled gravity;

Against that time do I ensconce me here,

Within the knowledge of mine own desert,

And this my hand, against my self uprear,

To guard the lawful reasons on thy part: 

  To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,

  Since why to love I can allege no cause.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXVI



Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

Bound for the prize of all too precious you,

That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,

Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,

Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

No, neither he, nor his compeers by night

Giving him aid, my verse astonished.

He, nor that affable familiar ghost

Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,

As victors of my silence cannot boast;

I was not sick of any fear from thence:

  But when your countenance fill\'d up his line,

  Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Action: St. Augustine Quotes
God provides the wind, but man must raise the sails.That\'s like asking you to pick your favorite child... I do however, think
Bird on a Wire was one of my finest works. Oscar caliber.
Mel Gibson

XCI



Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,

Some in their wealth, some in their body\'s force,

Some in their garments though new-fangled ill;

Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;

And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,

Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:

But these particulars are not my measure,

All these I better in one general best.

Thy love is better than high birth to me,

Richer than wealth, prouder than garments\' costs,

Of more delight than hawks and horses be;

And having thee, of all men\'s pride I boast:

  Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take

  All this away, and me most wretchcd make.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXVII



Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou know\'st thy estimate,

The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thy self thou gav\'st, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me to whom thou gav\'st it, else mistaking;

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgement making.

  Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,

  In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXI



Or I shall live your epitaph to make,

Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;

From hence your memory death cannot take,

Although in me each part will be forgotten.

Your name from hence immortal life shall have,

Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:

The earth can yield me but a common grave,

When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,

Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;

And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,

When all the breathers of this world are dead;

  You still shall live,--such virtue hath my pen,--

  Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXLII



Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,

Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:

O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,

And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;

Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine, 

That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments

And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,

Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.

Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those

Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:

Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,

Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.

  If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,

  By self-example mayst thou be denied!



CXLIII



Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch

One of her feather'd creatures broke away,

Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch

In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;

Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,

Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent

To follow that which flies before her face,

Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;

So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee, 

Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;

But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,

And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;

  So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'

  If thou turn back and my loud crying still.

 	--William Shakespeare

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XCVIII



From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell

Of different flowers in odour and in hue,

Could make me any summer's story tell,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: 

Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;

They were but sweet, but figures of delight,

Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

  Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away,

  As with your shadow I with these did play.

 	--William Shakespeare

XVI



But wherefore do not you a mightier way

Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?

And fortify your self in your decay

With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?

Now stand you on the top of happy hours,

And many maiden gardens, yet unset,

With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,

Much liker than your painted counterfeit:

So should the lines of life that life repair,

Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,

Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,

Can make you live your self in eyes of men.

  To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,

  And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

 	--William Shakespeare

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XXI



So is it not with me as with that Muse,

Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,

Who heaven itself for ornament doth use

And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,

Making a couplement of proud compare'

With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,

With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,

That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.

O! let me, true in love, but truly write,

And then believe me, my love is as fair

As any mother's child, though not so bright

As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:

  Let them say more that like of hearsay well;

  I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXII



I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,

And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook

The dedicated words which writers use

Of their fair subject, blessing every book. 

Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,

Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;

And therefore art enforced to seek anew

Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.

And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd,

What strained touches rhetoric can lend,

Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathiz'd

In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;

  And their gross painting might be better us'd

  Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXVII



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-purchas'd 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 waken'd hate;

  Since my appeal says I did strive to prove

  The constancy and virtue of your love.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXII



Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,

Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,

Have put on black and loving mourners be,

Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.

And truly not the morning sun of heaven 

Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,

Nor that full star that ushers in the even,

Doth half that glory to the sober west,

As those two mourning eyes become thy face:

O! let it then as well beseem thy heart

To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,

And suit thy pity like in every part.

  Then will I swear beauty herself is black,

  And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

 	--William Shakespeare

X



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.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXVII



In the old age black was not counted fair,

Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;

But now is black beauty's successive heir,

And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame:

For since each hand hath put on Nature's power, 

Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face,

Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,

But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace.

Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,

Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem

At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,

Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:

  Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,

  That every tongue says beauty should look so.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXIX



The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action: and till action, lust

Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;

Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,

Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,

On purpose laid to make the taker mad:

Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme;

A bliss in proof,-- and prov'd, a very woe;

Before, a joy propos'd; behind a dream.

  All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

 	--William Shakespeare

CX



Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,

And made my self a motley to the view,

Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

Made old offences of affections new;

Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth

Askance and strangely; but, by all above,

These blenches gave my heart another youth,

And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.

Now all is done, save what shall have no end:

Mine appetite I never more will grind

On newer proof, to try an older friend,

A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.

  Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

  Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXV



Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

Even those that said I could not love you dearer:

Yet then my judgment knew no reason why

My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.

But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents

Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,

Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,

Divert strong minds to the course of altering 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?



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-fixed 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 prov'd,

  I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

 	--William Shakespeare

CVIII



What's in the brain, that ink may character,

Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit?

What's new to speak, what now to register,

That may express my love, or thy dear merit?

Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,

I must each day say o'er the very same;

Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, 

Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.

So that eternal love in love's fresh case,

Weighs not the dust and injury of age,

Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,

But makes antiquity for aye his page;

  Finding the first conceit of love there bred,

  Where time and outward form would show it dead.

 	--William Shakespeare

L



How heavy do I journey on the way,

When what I seek, my weary travel's end,

Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,

'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'

The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,

Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,

As if by some instinct the wretch did know

His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee:

The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,

That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,

Which heavily he answers with a groan,

More sharp to me than spurring to his side;

  For that same groan doth put this in my mind,

  My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXII



I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,

And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook

The dedicated words which writers use

Of their fair subject, blessing every book. 

Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,

Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;

And therefore art enforced to seek anew

Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.

And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd,

What strained touches rhetoric can lend,

Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathiz'd

In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;

  And their gross painting might be better us'd

  Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXVII



As a decrepit father takes delight

To see his active child do deeds of youth,

So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,

Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth; 

For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,

Or any of these all, or all, or more,

Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,

I make my love engrafted, to this store:

So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd,

Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give

That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,

And by a part of all thy glory live.

  Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:

  This wish I have; then ten times happy me!



XXXVIII



How can my muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thy self dost give invention light? 

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

  If my slight muse do please these curious days,

  The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLVIII



How careful was I when I took my way,

Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,

That to my use it might unused stay

From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!

But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,

Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,

Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,

Art left the prey of every vulgar thief. 

Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest,

Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,

Within the gentle closure of my breast,

From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;

  And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,

  For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXIX



Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view

Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;

All tongues--the voice of souls--give thee that due,

Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.

Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;

But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,

In other accents do this praise confound

By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.

They look into the beauty of thy mind,

And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;

Then--churls--their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,

To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds: 

  But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,

  The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.

 	--William Shakespeare

XCVIII



From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell

Of different flowers in odour and in hue,

Could make me any summer's story tell,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: 

Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;

They were but sweet, but figures of delight,

Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

  Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away,

  As with your shadow I with these did play.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXVIII



When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,

And place my merit in the eye of scorn,

Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight,

And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.

With mine own weakness, being best acquainted,

Upon thy part I can set down a story

Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted;

That thou in losing me shalt win much glory: 

And I by this will be a gainer too;

For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,

The injuries that to myself I do,

Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.

  Such is my love, to thee I so belong,

  That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXV



So are you to my thoughts as food to life,

Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;

And for the peace of you I hold such strife

As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.

Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;

Now counting best to be with you alone,

Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,

And by and by clean starved for a look;

Possessing or pursuing no delight,

Save what is had, or must from you be took.

  Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,

  Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXLII



Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,

Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:

O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,

And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;

Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine, 

That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments

And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,

Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.

Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those

Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:

Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,

Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.

  If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,

  By self-example mayst thou be denied!



CXLIII



Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch

One of her feather'd creatures broke away,

Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch

In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;

Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,

Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent

To follow that which flies before her face,

Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;

So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee, 

Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;

But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,

And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;

  So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'

  If thou turn back and my loud crying still.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXVIII



When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,

And place my merit in the eye of scorn,

Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight,

And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.

With mine own weakness, being best acquainted,

Upon thy part I can set down a story

Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted;

That thou in losing me shalt win much glory: 

And I by this will be a gainer too;

For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,

The injuries that to myself I do,

Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.

  Such is my love, to thee I so belong,

  That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXI



O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

That did not better for my life provide

Than public means which public manners breeds.

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

And almost thence my nature is subdu'd

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:

Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd;

Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink,

Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;

No bitterness that I will bitter think,

Nor double penance, to correct correction.

  Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,

  Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXLIV



Two loves I have of comfort and despair,

Which like two spirits do suggest me still:

The better angel is a man right fair,

The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.

To win me soon to hell, my female evil,

Tempteth my better angel from my side,

And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,

Wooing his purity with her foul pride.

And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend,

Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;

But being both from me, both to each friend,

I guess one angel in another's hell:

  Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, 

  Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

 	--William Shakespeare

XII



When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime,

And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white; 

When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,

And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,

Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

That thou among the wastes of time must go,

Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake

And die as fast as they see others grow;

  And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence

  Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXII



Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,

Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,

Have put on black and loving mourners be,

Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.

And truly not the morning sun of heaven 

Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,

Nor that full star that ushers in the even,

Doth half that glory to the sober west,

As those two mourning eyes become thy face:

O! let it then as well beseem thy heart

To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,

And suit thy pity like in every part.

  Then will I swear beauty herself is black,

  And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

 	--William Shakespeare

XI



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.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXIX



The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action: and till action, lust

Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;

Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,

Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,

On purpose laid to make the taker mad:

Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme;

A bliss in proof,-- and prov'd, a very woe;

Before, a joy propos'd; behind a dream.

  All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXL



Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;

Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express

The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

If I might teach thee wit, better it were,

Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;--

As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,

No news but health from their physicians know;--

For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,

And in my madness might speak ill of thee;

Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.

  That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXVI



Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

Bound for the prize of all too precious you,

That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,

Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,

Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

No, neither he, nor his compeers by night

Giving him aid, my verse astonished.

He, nor that affable familiar ghost

Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,

As victors of my silence cannot boast;

I was not sick of any fear from thence:

  But when your countenance fill'd up his line,

  Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.

 	--William Shakespeare

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My old drama coach used to say, \'Don\'t just do something, stand there.\'
Gary Cooper wasn\'t afraid to do nothing.
Clint Eastwood

II



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,

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.

 	--William Shakespeare

Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak
minds. --Albert Einstein

Religion: St. Augustine Quotes
For what is faith unless it is to believe what you do not see?

CIV



To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,

Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,

In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd:

  For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:

  Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXV



Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars

Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.

Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread

But as the marigold at the sun's eye,

And in themselves their pride lies buried,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foil'd,

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:

Then happy I, that love and am belov'd,

Where I may not remove nor be remov'd.

 	--William Shakespeare

CV



Let not my love be call'd idolatry,

Nor my beloved as an idol show,

Since all alike my songs and praises be

To one, of one, still such, and ever so.

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,

Still constant in a wondrous excellence;

Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd,

One thing expressing, leaves out difference.

'Fair, kind, and true,' is all my argument,

'Fair, kind, and true,' varying to other words;

And in this change is my invention spent,

Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.

  Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone,

  Which three till now, never kept seat in one.

 	--William Shakespeare

LX



Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:

  And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.

  Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXIV



Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,

And make me travel forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,

Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?

'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak,

That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;

Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:

The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence's cross. 

  Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,

  And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXIII



I never saw that you did painting need,

And therefore to your fair no painting set;

I found, or thought I found, you did exceed

That barren tender of a poet's debt:

And therefore have I slept in your report,

That you yourself, being extant, well might show

How far a modern quill doth come too short,

Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. 

This silence for my sin you did impute,

Which shall be most my glory being dumb;

For I impair not beauty being mute,

When others would give life, and bring a tomb.

  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes

  Than both your poets can in praise devise.

 	--William Shakespeare

XCIII



So shall I live, supposing thou art true,

Like a deceived husband; so love's face

May still seem love to me, though alter'd new;

Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:

For there can live no hatred in thine eye,

Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.

In many's looks, the false heart's history

Is writ in moods, and frowns, and wrinkles strange. 

But heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;

Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,

Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.

  How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,

  If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!



XCIV



They that have power to hurt, and will do none,

That do not do the thing they most do show,

Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,

Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;

They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,

And husband nature's riches from expense;

They are the lords and owners of their faces,

Others, but stewards of their excellence.

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,

Though to itself, it only live and die,

But if that flower with base infection meet,

The basest weed outbraves his dignity: 

  For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;

  Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.

 	--William Shakespeare

L



How heavy do I journey on the way,

When what I seek, my weary travel's end,

Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,

'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'

The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,

Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,

As if by some instinct the wretch did know

His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee:

The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,

That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,

Which heavily he answers with a groan,

More sharp to me than spurring to his side;

  For that same groan doth put this in my mind,

  My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.

 	--William Shakespeare

XCVIII



From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell

Of different flowers in odour and in hue,

Could make me any summer's story tell,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: 

Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;

They were but sweet, but figures of delight,

Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

  Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away,

  As with your shadow I with these did play.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXV



Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

Even those that said I could not love you dearer:

Yet then my judgment knew no reason why

My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.

But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents

Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,

Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,

Divert strong minds to the course of altering 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?



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-fixed 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 prov'd,

  I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXIV



Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd 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 flattery 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 poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin

  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

 	--William Shakespeare

LIV



O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.

The canker blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the roses.

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:

But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made: 

  And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

  When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXV



No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,--

Thy adverse party is thy advocate,--

And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:

Such civil war is in my love and hate,

  That I an accessary needs must be,

  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLIX



Against that time, if ever that time come,

When I shall see thee frown on my defects,

When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,

Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects;

Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,

And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,

When love, converted from the thing it was,

Shall reasons find of settled gravity;

Against that time do I ensconce me here,

Within the knowledge of mine own desert,

And this my hand, against my self uprear,

To guard the lawful reasons on thy part: 

  To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,

  Since why to love I can allege no cause.

 	--William Shakespeare

C



Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,

To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?

Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,

Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,

In gentle numbers time so idly spent;

Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem

And gives thy pen both skill and argument.

Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,

If Time have any wrinkle graven there;

If any, be a satire to decay,

And make time's spoils despised every where.

  Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,

  So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.

 	--William Shakespeare

CIV



To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,

Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,

In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd:

  For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:

  Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Well, I learned a lot... I went down to Latin America to find out from
them and (learn) their views. You\'d be surprised. They\'re all individual
countries.
Ronald Reagan

XXVIII



How can I then return in happy plight,

That am debarre\'d the benefit of rest?

When day\'s oppression is not eas\'d by night,

But day by night and night by day oppress\'d,

And each, though enemies to either\'s reign,

Do in consent shake hands to torture me,

The one by toil, the other to complain

How far I toil, still farther off from thee. 

I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,

And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:

So flatter I the swart-complexion\'d night,

When sparkling stars twire not thou gild\'st the even.

  But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,

  And night doth nightly make grief\'s length seem stronger.

 	--William Shakespeare

CII



My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear;

That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,

The owner's tongue doth publish every where.

Our love was new, and then but in the spring,

When I was wont to greet it with my lays;

As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,

And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:

Not that the summer is less pleasant now

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

But that wild music burthens every bough,

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

  Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:

  Because I would not dull you with my song.

 	--William Shakespeare

LV



Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

  So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

  You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast
for a while, and then have a hell of a close.
Ronald Reagan


No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain,
for economic advantage, for ideology.
Ronald Reagan

The greatest homage to truth is to use it. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The taxpayer - that\'s someone who works for the federal government but
doesn\'t have to take the civil service examination.
Ronald Reagan

V



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.

 	--William Shakespeare

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After about 20 years of marriage, I\'m finally starting to scratch the
surface of what women want. And I think the answer lies somewhere between
conversation and chocolate.
Mel Gibson

It is important to express oneself... provided the feelings are
real and are taken from you own experience.
Berthe Morisot

XIII



O! that you were your self; but, love you are

No longer yours, than you your self here live:

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give:

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination; then you were

Yourself again, after yourself\'s decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. 

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold,

Against the stormy gusts of winter\'s day

And barren rage of death\'s eternal cold?

  O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,

  You had a father: let your son say so.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXLVIII



O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,

Which have no correspondence with true sight;

Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,

That censures falsely what they see aright?

If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,

What means the world to say it is not so?

If it be not, then love doth well denote

Love\'s eye is not so true as all men\'s: no,

How can it? O! how can Love\'s eye be true, 

That is so vexed with watching and with tears?

No marvel then, though I mistake my view;

The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.

  O cunning Love! with tears thou keep\'st me blind,

  Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

 	--William Shakespeare

CII



My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear;

That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,

The owner's tongue doth publish every where.

Our love was new, and then but in the spring,

When I was wont to greet it with my lays;

As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,

And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:

Not that the summer is less pleasant now

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

But that wild music burthens every bough,

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

  Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:

  Because I would not dull you with my song.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXVII



Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,

Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;

These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,

And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste. 

The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show

Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;

Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know

Time's thievish progress to eternity.

Look! what thy memory cannot contain,

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find

Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,

To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

  Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLVII



Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,

And each doth good turns now unto the other:

When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,

Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,

With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,

And to the painted banquet bids my heart;

Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,

And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:

So, either by thy picture or my love,

Thy self away, art present still with me;

For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,

And I am still with them, and they with thee;

  Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight

  Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.

 	--William Shakespeare

CII



My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear;

That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,

The owner's tongue doth publish every where.

Our love was new, and then but in the spring,

When I was wont to greet it with my lays;

As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,

And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:

Not that the summer is less pleasant now

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

But that wild music burthens every bough,

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

  Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:

  Because I would not dull you with my song.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXIV



When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd

The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd,

And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

And the firm soil win of the watery main,

Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,

Or state itself confounded, to decay;

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate--

That Time will come and take my love away. 

  This thought is as a death which cannot choose

  But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.

 	--William Shakespeare

VIII



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.'



IX



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.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Status quo, you know, is Latin for \'the mess we\'re in\'.
Ronald Reagan


People call me the painter of dancers, but I really wish to
capture movement itself.
Edgar Degas

We have so many people who can\'t see a fat man standing beside a thin one
without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking
advantage of the thin one!
Ronald Reagan

Tis done. We have become a nation.
Benjamin Rush, on the ratification of the Constitution, letter to Boudinot, July 9, 1788

LXXXVII



Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,

The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgement making.

  Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,

  In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXII



Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,

Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,

Have put on black and loving mourners be,

Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.

And truly not the morning sun of heaven 

Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,

Nor that full star that ushers in the even,

Doth half that glory to the sober west,

As those two mourning eyes become thy face:

O! let it then as well beseem thy heart

To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,

And suit thy pity like in every part.

  Then will I swear beauty herself is black,

  And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXVII



Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,

The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgement making.

  Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,

  In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXVI



O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power

Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour;

Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st

Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.

If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,

As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,

She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill

May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.

Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!

She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:

  Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,

  And her quietus is to render thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXV



My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,

While comments of your praise richly compil'd,

Reserve their character with golden quill,

And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.

I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,

And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen'

To every hymn that able spirit affords,

In polish'd form of well-refined pen.

Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,'

And to the most of praise add something more;

But that is in my thought, whose love to you,

Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.

  Then others, for the breath of words respect,

  Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLI



Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,

When I am sometime absent from thy heart,

Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,

For still temptation follows where thou art.

Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,

Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;

And when a woman woos, what woman's son

Will sourly leave her till he have prevail'd?

Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,

And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,

Who lead thee in their riot even there

Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:--

  Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,

  Thine by thy beauty being false to me.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXL



Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;

Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express

The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

If I might teach thee wit, better it were,

Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;--

As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,

No news but health from their physicians know;--

For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,

And in my madness might speak ill of thee;

Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.

  That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXVIII



When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutor'd youth,

Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:

On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:

But wherefore says she not she is unjust? 

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love, loves not to have years told:

  Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,

  And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

 	--William Shakespeare

XVIII



Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd: 

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

  So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in
the opposite direction. --Albert Einstein

XVII



Who will believe my verse in time to come,

If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?

Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb

Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts. 

If I could write the beauty of your eyes,

And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

The age to come would say 'This poet lies;

Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'

So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,

Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,

And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage

And stretched metre of an antique song:

  But were some child of yours alive that time,

  You should live twice,--in it, and in my rhyme.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXLVI



Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, 

My sinful earth these rebel powers array,

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?

Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?

Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,

And let that pine to aggravate thy store;

Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more:

  So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

  And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

 	--William Shakespeare

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CXLVII



My love is as a fever longing still,

For that which longer nurseth the disease;

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

The uncertain sickly appetite to please.

My reason, the physician to my love, 

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,

Hath left me, and I desperate now approve

Desire is death, which physic did except.

Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,

And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,

At random from the truth vainly express'd;

  For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,

  Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

 	--William Shakespeare

CI



O truant Muse what shall be thy amends

For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?

Both truth and beauty on my love depends;

So dost thou too, and therein dignified.

Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,

'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;

Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;

But best is best, if never intermix'd'?

Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?

Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee

To make him much outlive a gilded tomb

And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.

  Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how

  To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

 	--William Shakespeare

VII



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.

 	--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

CXXVI



O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power

Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour;

Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st

Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.

If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,

As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,

She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill

May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.

Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!

She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:

  Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,

  And her quietus is to render thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

LI



Thus can my love excuse the slow offence

Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:

From where thou art why should I haste me thence?

Till I return, of posting is no need.

O! what excuse will my poor beast then find,

When swift extremity can seem but slow?

Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind,

In winged speed n:motion shall I know,

Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;

Therefore desire, of perfect'st love being made,

Shall neigh--no dull flesh--in his fiery race;

But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,--

  'Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,

  Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.'



LII



So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,

Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,

The which he will not every hour survey,

For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. 

Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,

Since, seldom coming in that long year set,

Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,

Or captain jewels in the carcanet.

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,

Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,

To make some special instant special-blest,

By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.

  Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,

  Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXIII



Against my love shall be as I am now,

With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn;

When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow

With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn

Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;

And all those beauties whereof now he's king

Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,

Stealing away the treasure of his spring; 

For such a time do I now fortify

Against confounding age's cruel knife,

That he shall never cut from memory

My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:

  His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,

  And they shall live, and he in them still green.

 	--William Shakespeare

LI



Thus can my love excuse the slow offence

Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:

From where thou art why should I haste me thence?

Till I return, of posting is no need.

O! what excuse will my poor beast then find,

When swift extremity can seem but slow?

Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind,

In winged speed n:motion shall I know,

Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;

Therefore desire, of perfect'st love being made,

Shall neigh--no dull flesh--in his fiery race;

But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,--

  'Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,

  Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.'



LII



So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,

Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,

The which he will not every hour survey,

For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. 

Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,

Since, seldom coming in that long year set,

Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,

Or captain jewels in the carcanet.

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,

Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,

To make some special instant special-blest,

By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.

  Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,

  Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXII



Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,

Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,

Have put on black and loving mourners be,

Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.

And truly not the morning sun of heaven 

Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,

Nor that full star that ushers in the even,

Doth half that glory to the sober west,

As those two mourning eyes become thy face:

O! let it then as well beseem thy heart

To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,

And suit thy pity like in every part.

  Then will I swear beauty herself is black,

  And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

 	--William Shakespeare

LI



Thus can my love excuse the slow offence

Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:

From where thou art why should I haste me thence?

Till I return, of posting is no need.

O! what excuse will my poor beast then find,

When swift extremity can seem but slow?

Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind,

In winged speed n:motion shall I know,

Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;

Therefore desire, of perfect'st love being made,

Shall neigh--no dull flesh--in his fiery race;

But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,--

  'Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,

  Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.'



LII



So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,

Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,

The which he will not every hour survey,

For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure. 

Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,

Since, seldom coming in that long year set,

Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,

Or captain jewels in the carcanet.

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,

Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,

To make some special instant special-blest,

By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.

  Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,

  Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXIII



I never saw that you did painting need,

And therefore to your fair no painting set;

I found, or thought I found, you did exceed

That barren tender of a poet's debt:

And therefore have I slept in your report,

That you yourself, being extant, well might show

How far a modern quill doth come too short,

Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. 

This silence for my sin you did impute,

Which shall be most my glory being dumb;

For I impair not beauty being mute,

When others would give life, and bring a tomb.

  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes

  Than both your poets can in praise devise.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXI



Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,

Which I by lacking have supposed dead;

And there reigns Love, and all Love's loving parts,

And all those friends which I thought buried.

How many a holy and obsequious tear

Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,

As interest of the dead, which now appear

But things remov'd that hidden in thee lie!

Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,

Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,

Who all their parts of me to thee did give,

That due of many now is thine alone:

  Their images I lov'd, I view in thee,

  And thou--all they--hast all the all of me.

 	--William Shakespeare

LVII



Being your slave what should I do but tend,

Upon the hours, and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend;

Nor services to do, till you require. 

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,

Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,

Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,

When you have bid your servant once adieu;

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,

But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought

Save, where you are, how happy you make those.

  So true a fool is love, that in your will,

  Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

 	--William Shakespeare

V



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.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXVII



Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,

The dear respose for limbs with travel tir'd;

But then begins a journey in my head

To work my mind, when body's work's expired: 

For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--

Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,

Looking on darkness which the blind do see:

Save that my soul's imaginary sight

Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,

Which, like a jewel (hung in ghastly night,

Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.

  Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,

  For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXIII



I never saw that you did painting need,

And therefore to your fair no painting set;

I found, or thought I found, you did exceed

That barren tender of a poet's debt:

And therefore have I slept in your report,

That you yourself, being extant, well might show

How far a modern quill doth come too short,

Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. 

This silence for my sin you did impute,

Which shall be most my glory being dumb;

For I impair not beauty being mute,

When others would give life, and bring a tomb.

  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes

  Than both your poets can in praise devise.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXVI



Why is my verse so barren of new pride,

So far from variation or quick change?

Why with the time do I not glance aside

To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

O! know sweet love I always write of you,

And you and love are still my argument;

So all my best is dressing old words new,

Spending again what is already spent:

  For as the sun is daily new and old,

  So is my love still telling what is told.

 	--William Shakespeare

CX



Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,

And made my self a motley to the view,

Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

Made old offences of affections new;

Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth

Askance and strangely; but, by all above,

These blenches gave my heart another youth,

And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.

Now all is done, save what shall have no end:

Mine appetite I never more will grind

On newer proof, to try an older friend,

A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.

  Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

  Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

 	--William Shakespeare

LX



Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:

  And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.

  Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

 	--William Shakespeare

III



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.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXVIII



So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,

And found such fair assistance in my verse

As every alien pen hath got my use

And under thee their poesy disperse.

Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing

And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

Have added feathers to the learned's wing

And given grace a double majesty.

Yet be most proud of that which I compile,

Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:

In others' works thou dost but mend the style,

And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;

  But thou art all my art, and dost advance

  As high as learning, my rude ignorance.

 	--William Shakespeare

CI



O truant Muse what shall be thy amends

For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?

Both truth and beauty on my love depends;

So dost thou too, and therein dignified.

Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,

'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;

Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;

But best is best, if never intermix'd'?

Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?

Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee

To make him much outlive a gilded tomb

And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.

  Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how

  To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

 	--William Shakespeare

LX



Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:

  And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.

  Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXV



Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

Even those that said I could not love you dearer:

Yet then my judgment knew no reason why

My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.

But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents

Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,

Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,

Divert strong minds to the course of altering 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?



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-fixed 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 prov'd,

  I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

 	--William Shakespeare

The former post was removed as it was off topic or spam. We are migrating over to registration-only forums at jollyrogerwest.com Great Books forums and booksliterature.com Great Books forums. These are Great Books sites, and we prefer posts such as:

The former post was removed because it was off topic, and thus a violation of our Great Books & Classics spirit. We are migrating to
registration-only forums at href=http://jollyrogerwest.com>jollyrogerwest.com Great Books forums,
Philosophy Forums,
and booksliterature.com Great Books forums. These are Great Books sites, and we prefer posts along the following
lines:

XXXVII



As a decrepit father takes delight

To see his active child do deeds of youth,

So I, made lame by Fortune\'s dearest spite,

Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth; 

For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,

Or any of these all, or all, or more,

Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,

I make my love engrafted, to this store:

So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis\'d,

Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give

That I in thy abundance am suffic\'d,

And by a part of all thy glory live.

  Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:

  This wish I have; then ten times happy me!



XXXVIII



How can my muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour\'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;

For who\'s so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thy self dost give invention light? 

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

  If my slight muse do please these curious days,

  The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

 	--William Shakespeare

III



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.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXLVI



Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, 

My sinful earth these rebel powers array,

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?

Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?

Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,

And let that pine to aggravate thy store;

Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more:

  So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

  And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXV



Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars

Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.

Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread

But as the marigold at the sun's eye,

And in themselves their pride lies buried,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foil'd,

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:

Then happy I, that love and am belov'd,

Where I may not remove nor be remov'd.

 	--William Shakespeare

XCVI



Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;

Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;

Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less:

Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.

As on the finger of a throned queen

The basest jewel will be well esteem'd,

So are those errors that in thee are seen

To truths translated, and for true things deem'd.

How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,

If like a lamb he could his looks translate!

How many gazers mightst thou lead away,

if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!

  But do not so; I love thee in such sort,

  As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

 	--William Shakespeare

CVIII



What's in the brain, that ink may character,

Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit?

What's new to speak, what now to register,

That may express my love, or thy dear merit?

Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,

I must each day say o'er the very same;

Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, 

Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.

So that eternal love in love's fresh case,

Weighs not the dust and injury of age,

Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,

But makes antiquity for aye his page;

  Finding the first conceit of love there bred,

  Where time and outward form would show it dead.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXX



That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect,

For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;

The ornament of beauty is suspect,

A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.

So thou be good, slander doth but approve

Thy worth the greater being woo'd of time;

For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,

And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.

Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days

Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd;

Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,

To tie up envy, evermore enlarg'd,

  If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show,

  Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.

 	--William Shakespeare

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,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

  This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

  To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

 	--William Shakespeare