OF SHAKESPEARE

129

THE POET'S IMMORTALITY

UT be contented: when that fell arrest

BUT

Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.

When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee:

The earth can have but earth, which is his due ;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me :

So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base of thee to be rememberéd.

The worth of that is that which it contains, And that is this, and this with thee remains.

K

130

SONGS AND SONNETS

RICH AND POOR

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 starvéd 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.

OF SHAKESPEARE

131

SWEET MONOTONY

WHY is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?

Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?

O, know, sweet Love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent :

For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.

WITH AN ALBUM

THY glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;

The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear, And of this book this learning mayst thou taste.

The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know
Time's thievish progress to eternity.

Look, what thy memory can not contain

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

OF SHAKESPEARE

133

S°

THE TRUE INSPIRATION

oft have I invoked thee for my Muse

And found such fair assistance in my verse,

As every alien pen hath got my use,

And under thee their poesy disperse.

Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

Have added feathers to the learnéd's wing,
And given grace a double majesty.

Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine and born of thee:
In others' works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces gracéd be ;

But thou art all my art, and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.