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 slandered with a…
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time’s fickle glass his fickle 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 proves more short than waste or ruining? Have I…
If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered, 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 charactered 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 esteemed When not to be receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed Not by our feeling, but…
That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or…
As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow’st In one of thine, from that which thou departest, And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow’st, Thou mayst call…
What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within, Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, Still losing when I saw my self…