My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be…
How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st, Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway’st The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,…
In 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 slander’d with a…
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time’s fickle glass, his sickle, hour; Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st Thy lovers withering as thy…
Were ‘t aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which prove more short than waste or ruining? Have…
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to…
If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfather’d’ As subject to Time’s love or to Time’s hate, Weeds among weeds, or…
No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change: Thy pyramids built up with newer might To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; They are but dressings of a…
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full character’d with lasting memory, Which shall above that idle rank remain Beyond all date, even to eternity; Or at the least,…
‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d, When not to be receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost which is so deem’d Not by our feeling but…