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ILLUSTRATION OF THE SONNETS.

O no! thy love, though much, is not so great ;
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake:

For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere
From me far off, with others all-too-near.-61.

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected:
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed;
Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so?
How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay?

All days are nights to see, till I see thee,

And nights, bright days, when dreams do show thee me.-43.

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then, despite of space, I would be brought
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then, although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth remov'd from thee,
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But ah! thought kills me, that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leisure with my moan;
Receiving nought by elements so slow
But heavy tears, badges of either's woe :-

The other two, slight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee,

-44.

My life, being made of four, with two alone,
Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy;
Until life's composition be recur'd

By those swift messengers return'd from thee,
Who even but now come back again, assur'd

Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:

This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,

I send them back again, and straight grow sad.—45.

The transpositions we have made in the arrangement are justified by the considera

tion that in the original text the 50th, 51st, and 52nd Sonnets are entirely isolated; that the 27th and 28th are also perfectly unconnected with what precedes and what follows; that the 61st stands equally alone; and that the 43rd, 44th, and 45th are in a similar position. We have now a perfect little poem describing the journeythe restless pilgrimage of thought-the desire for return.

The thoughts of a temporary separation lead to the fear that absence may produce estrangement :

How careful was I, when I took my way,

Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,

That, to my use, it might unused stay

From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
Thou, best of dearest, and mine only care,

Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest,
Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,
Within the gentle closure of my breast,

From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;
And even thence thou wilt be stolen I fear,

For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.-48.

The sentiment is somewhat differently repeated in a Sonnet which is entirely isolated in the place where it stands in the original :

So are you to my thoughts, as food to life,

Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife

As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found:

Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,

Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:
Sometime, all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,

Save what is had or must from you be took.

Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.-75.

But the 49th Sonnet carries forward the dread expressed in the 48th that his friend will be stolen," into the apprehension that coldness, and neglect, and desertion may one day ensue :

Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
Whenas thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity;

Against that time do I ensconce me here
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this my hand against myself uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:

To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
Since, why to love, I can allege no cause.-49.

This Sonnet is also completely isolated; but much further on, according to the original arrangement, we find the idea here conveyed of that self-sacrificing humility which will endure unkindness without complaint, worked out with exquisite tenderness :

When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of Scorn,
Upon thy side against myself I'll fight,

And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story

Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted;
That thou, in losing me, shalt win much glory:
And I by this will be a gainer too;

For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to myself I do,

Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.

Such is my love, to thee I so belong,

That for thy right myself will bear all wrong.-88.

Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,

And I will comment upon that offence:

Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt;
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desired change,
As I'll myself disgrace knowing thy will,
I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange;
Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue
Thy sweet-beloved name no more shall dwell;
Lest I (too much profane) should do it wrong,
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.

For thee, against myself I'll vow debate,

For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.-89.

Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;

Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,

And do not drop in for an after loss:

Ah! do not, when my heart hath scap'd this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,

But in the onset come; so shall I taste

At first the very worst of fortune's might;

And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compar'd with loss of thee will not seem so.-90.

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body's force;
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill;
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest;
But these particulars are not my measure,
All these I better in one general best.
Thy love is better than high birth to me,

Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,
Of more delight than hawks or horses be;
And having thee, of all men's pride I boast.
Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take

All this away, and me most wretched make.-91.

But do thy worst to steal thyself away,

For term of life thou art assured mine;
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
When in the least of them my life hath end.
I see a better state to me belongs
Than that which on thy humour doth depend.
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie.
O what a happy title do I find,

Happy to have thy love, happy to die!

But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?—
Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not:-92.

So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband; so love's face
May still seem love to me, though alter'd-new;
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.
In many's looks the false heart's history

Is writ, in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange;
But Heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;
Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell.
How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,

If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!-93.

Separated from the preceding stanzas by three Sonnets, the 94th, 95th, and 96th, which we have already given-(they are those in which a friend is mildly upbraided for the defects in his character)-we have a second little poem on Absence.

It would be difficult to find anything more perfect in our own or any other lan

guage:

How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness everywhere!
And yet this time remov'd was summer's time;
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lord's decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;

Or, if they sing, 't is with so dull a cheer,

That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.-97.

From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,

That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell

Of different flowers in odour and in hue,

Could make me any summer's story tell,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew :
Nor did I wonder at the lilies white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,

As with your shadow I with these did play :-98.

The forward violet thus did I chide :

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my love's breath? The purple pride

Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells,

In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd.

The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair :
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both,
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;
But for his theft, in pride of all his growth

A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,

But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee.-99.

But this poem is quite unconnected with what precedes it. It is placed where it is upon no principle of continuity. Are we then to infer that the friend whose is the person who is immediately "shame" is "like a canker in the budding rose afterwards addressed as one from whom every flower had stolen "sweet or colour?'

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