LXXVIII So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,And found such fair assistance in my verseAs every alien pen hath got my useAnd under thee their poesy disperse.Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to singAnd heavy ignorance aloft to fly,Have added feathers to the learned’s wingAnd given grace a double majesty.Yet be

The quality of mercy is not strain’d.It droppeth as the gentle rain from heavenUpon the place beneath. It is twice blest:It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomesThe throned monarch better than his crown.His scepter shows the force of temporal power,The attribute to awe and majesty,Wherein doth sit

I From fairest creatures we desire increase,That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,But as the riper should by time decease,His tender heir might bear his memory:But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,Making a famine where abundance lies,Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:Thou that art

Let the bird of loudest lay,On the sole Arabian tree,Herald sad and trumpet be,To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou, shrieking harbinger,Foul pre-currer of the fiend,Augur of the fever’s end,To this troop come thou not near. From this session interdictEvery fowl of tyrant wing,Save the eagle, feather’d king:Keep the obsequy so strict. Let the

I.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,Unskilful in the world’s false forgeries,Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,Although I know my years be past the best,I smiling credit her false-speaking tongue,Outfacing faults in love with love’s

CXXVIIIn 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 slandered 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 profaned, if not

And let me the canakin clink, clink;And let me the canakin clinkA soldier’s a man;A life’s but a span;Why, then, let a soldier drink.

ON a day–alack the day!–Love, whose month is ever May,Spied a blossom passing fairPlaying in the wanton air:Through the velvet leaves the windAll unseen ‘gan passage find;That the lover, sick to death,Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath.Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;Air, would I might triumph so!But, alack, my hand is swornNe’er to pluck thee

That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.In me thou see’st the twilight of such dayAs after sunset fadeth in the west;Which by and by black night doth take away,Death’s second

TAKE, O take those lips away,That so sweetly were forsworn;And those eyes, the break of day,Lights that do mislead the morn!But my kisses bring again,Bring again;Seals of love, but seal’d in vain,Seal’d in vain!