SONNET S.

K

SHAK.

XV.

SONNET S.

[Sbakspeare's Sonnets were entered on the books of the Stationers' Company, May 20th, 1609, by Thomas Thorpe, who prefixed the following dedication:- To the only begetter of these ensuing Sonnets, Mr. W. H., all happiness, and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet, wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth, T. T.' In the course of the same year these Sonnets were printed in quarto : they were, however, written long before this period. since they are mentioned as a work of great popularity by Meres, in his Wit's Treasury, which was published in 1598. Malone remarks, that the general style of these poems, and the numerous passages in them which remind us of our author's plays, leave not the smallest doubt of their authenticity.']

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,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

II.

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:
Then, being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer,-
This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,-
Proving his beauty by succession thine.

This were to be new-made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

111.

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother: