Alas, 't is true I have gone here and there And made myself a motley to the view, Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

Made old offences of affections new;

Most true it is that I have looked on truth Askance and strangely: but, by all above, These blenches gave my heart another youth,

And worse essays proved thee my best of love.

Now all is done, have what shall have no end:

Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am confined.
Then give me welcome, next my heaven
the best,

Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

Sonnet CXI

O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds.

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me then and wish I were renewed;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infec-
tion;

No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure
ye

Even that your pity is enough to cure

me.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove :
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his
height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet CXXIX

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 trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, ex-
treme;

A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none
knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch One of her feathered creatures broke away, Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch

In pursuit of the thing she would have stay,

Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,

Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent To follow that which flies before her face, Not prizing her poor infant's discontent; So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,

Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind; But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to

me,

And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind:

So will I pray that thou mayst have thy "Will",

If thou turn back, and my loud crying still.