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+FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
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+That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
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+But as the riper should by time decease,
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+His tender heir might bear his memory:
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+But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
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+Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
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+Making a famine where abundance lies,
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+Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
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+Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
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+And only herald to the gaudy spring,
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+Within thine own bud buriest thy content
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+And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
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+Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
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+To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
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+When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,
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+And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
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+Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
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+Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:
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+Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,
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+Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
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+To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
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+Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
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+How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
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+If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
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+Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,'
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+Proving his beauty by succession thine!
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+This were to be new made when thou art old,
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+And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.
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+Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
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+Now is the time that face should form another;
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+Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
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+Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
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+For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
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+Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
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+Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
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+Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
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+Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
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+Calls back the lovely April of her prime:
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+So thou through windows of thine age shall see
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+Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
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+But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
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+Die single, and thine image dies with thee.
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+Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
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+Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?
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+Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
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+And being frank she lends to those are free.
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+Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
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+The bounteous largess given thee to give?
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+Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
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+So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
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+For having traffic with thyself alone,
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+Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
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+Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
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+What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
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+Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee,
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+Which, used, lives th' executor to be.
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+Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
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+The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
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+Will play the tyrants to the very same
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+And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
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+For never-resting time leads summer on
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+To hideous winter and confounds him there;
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+Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
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+Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:
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+Then, were not summer's distillation left,
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+A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
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+Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
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+Nor it nor no remembrance what it was:
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+But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet,
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+Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.
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+Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
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+In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
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+Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
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+With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
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+That use is not forbidden usury,
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+Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
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+That's for thyself to breed another thee,
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+Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
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+Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
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+If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
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+Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
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+Leaving thee living in posterity?
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+Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
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+To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
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+Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
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+Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
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+Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
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+Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
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+And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,
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+Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
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+yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
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+Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
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+But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
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+Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
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+The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
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+From his low tract and look another way:
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+So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,
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+Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.
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+Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
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+Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
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+Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
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+Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
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+If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
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+By unions married, do offend thine ear,
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+They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
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+In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
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+Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
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+Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
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+Resembling sire and child and happy mother
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+Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
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+Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
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+Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'
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+Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye
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+That thou consumest thyself in single life?
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+Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die.
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+The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;
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+The world will be thy widow and still weep
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+That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
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+When every private widow well may keep
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+By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind.
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+Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend
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+Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
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+But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
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+And kept unused, the user so destroys it.
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+No love toward others in that bosom sits
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+That on himself such murderous shame commits.
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+For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,
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+Who for thyself art so unprovident.
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+Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
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+But that thou none lovest is most evident;
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+For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate
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+That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire.
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+Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
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+Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
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+O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!
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+Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
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+Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
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+Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
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+Make thee another self, for love of me,
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+That beauty still may live in thine or thee.
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+As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest
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+In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
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+And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest
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+Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
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+Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase:
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+Without this, folly, age and cold decay:
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+If all were minded so, the times should cease
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+And threescore year would make the world away.
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+Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,
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+Harsh featureless and rude, barrenly perish:
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+Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;
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+Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
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+She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby
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+Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
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+When I do count the clock that tells the time,
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+And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
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+When I behold the violet past prime,
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+And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
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+When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
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+Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
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+And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
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+Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
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+Then of thy beauty do I question make,
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+That thou among the wastes of time must go,
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+Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
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+And die as fast as they see others grow;
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+And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
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+Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
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+O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are
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+No longer yours than you yourself here live:
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+Against this coming end you should prepare,
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+And your sweet semblance to some other give.
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+So should that beauty which you hold in lease
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+Find no determination: then you were
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+Yourself again after yourself's decease,
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+When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
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+Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
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+Which husbandry in honour might uphold
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+Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
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+And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
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+O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know
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+You had a father: let your son say so.
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+Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;
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+And yet methinks I have astronomy,
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+But not to tell of good or evil luck,
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+Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
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+Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
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+Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
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+Or say with princes if it shall go well,
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+By oft predict that I in heaven find:
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+But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
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+And, constant stars, in them I read such art
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+As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
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+If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;
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+Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
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+Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
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+When I consider every thing that grows
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+Holds in perfection but a little moment,
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+That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
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+Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
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+When I perceive that men as plants increase,
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+Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky,
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+Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
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+And wear their brave state out of memory;
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+Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
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+Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
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+Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,
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+To change your day of youth to sullied night;
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+And all in war with Time for love of you,
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+As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
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+But wherefore do not you a mightier way
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+Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?
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+And fortify yourself in your decay
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+With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
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+Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
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+And many maiden gardens yet unset
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+With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,
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+Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
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+So should the lines of life that life repair,
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+Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,
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+Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,
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+Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.
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+To give away yourself keeps yourself still,
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+And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.
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+Who will believe my verse in time to come,
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+If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
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+Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
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+Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
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+If I could write the beauty of your eyes
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+And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
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+The age to come would say 'This poet lies:
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+Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
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+So should my papers yellow'd with their age
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+Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,
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+And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
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+And stretched metre of an antique song:
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+But were some child of yours alive that time,
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+You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.
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+Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
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+Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
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+Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
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+And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
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+Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
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+And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
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+And every fair from fair sometime declines,
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+By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
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+But thy eternal summer shall not fade
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+Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
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+Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
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+When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
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+So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
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+So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
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+Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
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+And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
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+Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
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+And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
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+Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
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+And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
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+To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
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+But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
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+O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
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+Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
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+Him in thy course untainted do allow
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+For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
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+Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
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+My love shall in my verse ever live young.
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+A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
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+Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
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+A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
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+With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
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+An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
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+Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
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+A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,
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+Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
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+And for a woman wert thou first created;
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+Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
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+And by addition me of thee defeated,
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+By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
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+But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
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+Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.
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+So is it not with me as with that Muse
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+Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,
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+Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
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+And every fair with his fair doth rehearse
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+Making a couplement of proud compare,
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+With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
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+With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare
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+That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
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+O' let me, true in love, but truly write,
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+And then believe me, my love is as fair
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+As any mother's child, though not so bright
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+As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:
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+Let them say more than like of hearsay well;
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+I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
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+My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
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+So long as youth and thou are of one date;
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+But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
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+Then look I death my days should expiate.
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+For all that beauty that doth cover thee
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+Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
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+Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
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+How can I then be elder than thou art?
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+O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
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+As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
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+Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
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+As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
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+Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
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+Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again.
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+As an unperfect actor on the stage
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+Who with his fear is put besides his part,
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+Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
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+Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart.
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+So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
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+The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
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+And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
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+O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might.
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+O, let my books be then the eloquence
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+And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
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+Who plead for love and look for recompense
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+More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
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+O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
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+To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
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+Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
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+Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
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+My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
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+And perspective it is the painter's art.
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+For through the painter must you see his skill,
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+To find where your true image pictured lies;
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+Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
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+That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
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+Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
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+Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
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+Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
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+Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
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+Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;
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+They draw but what they see, know not the heart.
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+Let those who are in favour with their stars
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+Of public honour and proud titles boast,
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+Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
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+Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
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+Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
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+But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
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+And in themselves their pride lies buried,
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+For at a frown they in their glory die.
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+The painful warrior famoused for fight,
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+After a thousand victories once foil'd,
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+Is from the book of honour razed quite,
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+And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:
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+Then happy I, that love and am beloved
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+Where I may not remove nor be removed.
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+Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
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+Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
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+To thee I send this written embassage,
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+To witness duty, not to show my wit:
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+Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
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+May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
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+But that I hope some good conceit of thine
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+In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;
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+Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
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+Points on me graciously with fair aspect
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+And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,
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+To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
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+Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
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+Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me.
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+Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
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+The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
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+But then begins a journey in my head,
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+To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
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+For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
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+Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
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+And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
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+Looking on darkness which the blind do see
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+Save that my soul's imaginary sight
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+Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
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+Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
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+Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
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+Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
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+For thee and for myself no quiet find.
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+How can I then return in happy plight,
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+That am debarr'd the benefit of rest?
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+When day's oppression is not eased by night,
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+But day by night, and night by day, oppress'd?
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+And each, though enemies to either's reign,
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+Do in consent shake hands to torture me;
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+The one by toil, the other to complain
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+How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
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+I tell the day, to please them thou art bright
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+And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
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+So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,
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+When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.
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+But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer
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+And night doth nightly make grief's strength seem stronger.
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+When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
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+I all alone beweep my outcast state
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+And trouble deal heaven with my bootless cries
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+And look upon myself and curse my fate,
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+Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
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+Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
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+Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
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+With what I most enjoy contented least;
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+Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
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+Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
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+Like to the lark at break of day arising
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+From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
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+For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
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+That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
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+When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
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+I summon up remembrance of things past,
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+I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
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+And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
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+Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
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+For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
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+And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
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+And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
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+Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
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+And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
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+The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
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+Which I new pay as if not paid before.
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+But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
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+All losses are restored and sorrows end.
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+Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
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+Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
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+And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,
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+And all those friends which I thought buried.
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+How many a holy and obsequious tear
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+Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye
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+As interest of the dead, which now appear
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+But things removed that hidden in thee lie!
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+Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
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+Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
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+Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
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+That due of many now is thine alone:
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+Their images I loved I view in thee,
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+And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.
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+If thou survive my well-contented day,
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+When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
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+And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
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+These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
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+Compare them with the bettering of the time,
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+And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,
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+Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
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+Exceeded by the height of happier men.
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+O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
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+'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,
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+A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
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+To march in ranks of better equipage:
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+But since he died and poets better prove,
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+Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'
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+Full many a glorious morning have I seen
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+Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
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+Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
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+Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
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+Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
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+With ugly rack on his celestial face,
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+And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
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+Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
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+Even so my sun one early morn did shine
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+With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
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+But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
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+The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
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+Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
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+Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.
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+Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
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+And make me travel forth without my cloak,
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+To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
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+Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
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+'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
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+To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
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+For no man well of such a salve can speak
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+That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:
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+Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
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+Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
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+The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
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+To him that bears the strong offence's cross.
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+Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
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+And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.
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+No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
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+Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
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+Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
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+And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
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+All men make faults, and even I in this,
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+Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
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+Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
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+Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
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+For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense--
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+Thy adverse party is thy advocate--
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+And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
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+Such civil war is in my love and hate
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+That I an accessary needs must be
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+To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.
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+Let me confess that we two must be twain,
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+Although our undivided loves are one:
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+So shall those blots that do with me remain
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+Without thy help by me be borne alone.
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+In our two loves there is but one respect,
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+Though in our lives a separable spite,
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+Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
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+Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
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+I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
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+Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
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+Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
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+Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
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+But do not so; I love thee in such sort
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+As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
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+As a decrepit father takes delight
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+To see his active child do deeds of youth,
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+So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,
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+Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
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+For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
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+Or any of these all, or all, or more,
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+Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,
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+I make my love engrafted to this store:
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+So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
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+Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
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+That I in thy abundance am sufficed
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+And by a part of all thy glory live.
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+Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee:
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+This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
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