O, PRESENT AND FUTURE THAT you were yourself! but, Love, you are No longer yours than you yourself here live: Against this coming end you should prepare, And your sweet semblance to some other give. So should that beauty which you hold in lease Yourself again after yourself's decease, When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. Who lets so fair a house fall to decay, Which husbandry in honour might uphold Against the stormy gusts of winter's day And barren rage of death's eternal cold? O, none but unthrifts! Dear my Love, you know You had a father: let your son say so. THE PROPHECIES OF LOVE NOT from the stars do I my judgement pluck ; And yet methinks I have astronomy, But not to tell of good or evil luck, Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality; Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell, But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive, Or else of thee this I prognosticate: Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date. YOUTH AND TIME WHEN I consider everything that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheer'd and check'd even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease And wear their brave state out of memory; Then the conceit of this inconstant stay And all in war with Time for love of you, COUNSELS OF LOVE UT wherefore do not you a mightier way BUT Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time? And fortify yourself in your decay With means more blesséd than my barren rhyme? Now stand you on the top of happy hours, And many maiden gardens yet unset With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers, Much liker than your painted counterfeit : So should the lines of life that life repair, To give away yourself keeps yourself still, WHO LOVE AS PAINTER will believe my verse in time to come, If it were fill'd with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes The age to come would say 'This poet lies; So should my papers yellow'd with their age But were some child of yours alive that time, |