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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

CL



O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,

With insufficiency my heart to sway?

To make me give the lie to my true sight,

And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantise of skill,

That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?

Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,

The more I hear and see just cause of hate?

O! though I love what others do abhor,

With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:

  If thy unworthiness rais\'d love in me,

  More worthy I to be belov\'d of thee.

 	--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