What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within, Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears, Still losing when I saw myself to win! What wretched errors hath my heart

Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes, That they behold, and see not what they see? They know what beauty is, see where it lies, Yet what the best is take the worst to be. If eyes corrupt

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

O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are No longer yours than you yourself here live: Against this coming end you should prepare, And your sweet semblance to some other give. So should that beauty

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

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 thyself the thanks, if aught

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

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

Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth, That having such a scope to show her pride, The argument all bare is of more worth Than when it hath my added praise beside! O, blame me not, if I no more can

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, [ ] these rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short

Like as, to make our appetites more keen, With eager compounds we our palate urge, As, to prevent our maladies unseen, We sicken to shun sickness when we purge, Even so, being tuff of your ne'er-cloying

That thou art blamed 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

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all, What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call, All mine was thine before thou hadst this more. Then if

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all, What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call, All mine was thine before thou hadst this more. Then if

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,

How can I then return in happy plight, That am debarr'd the benefit of rest? When day's oppression is not eased by night, But day by night, and night by day, oppress'd? And each, though enemies to either's

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

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

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age, When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed And brass eternal slave to mortal rage, When I have seen the hungry ocean

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws, And make the earth devour her own sweet brood, Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws, And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood, Make glad and