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LXXX



O! how I faint when I of you do write,

Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,

And in the praise thereof spends all his might,

To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!

But since your worth--wide as the ocean is,--

The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

My saucy bark, inferior far to his,

On your broad main doth wilfully appear.

Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,

Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;

Or, being wrack\'d, I am a worthless boat,

He of tall building, and of goodly pride:

  Then if he thrive and I be cast away,

  The worst was this,--my love was my decay.

 	--William Shakespeare

Mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step; for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in
despair.
C. S. Lewis, \'The Pilgrim\'s Regress\'

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