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WILLIAM
SHAKE-
SPEARE.

1564-1616.

THE POET'S PRAISE IMMORTAL.

NOT marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme ;

But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity,

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

WILLIAM
SHAKE-
SPEARE.

1564-1616.

TIME POWERLESS AGAINST SONG.

LIKE as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,

Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

WILLIAM
SHAKE-
SPEARE.

1564-1616.

NIGHT WATCHES.

Is it thy will, thy image should keep open

My heavy eyelids to the weary night?

Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows, like to thee, do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee

So far from home, into my deeds to pry;

To find out shames and idle hours in me,

The scope and tenour of thy jealousy?

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.

WILLIAM
SHAKE-
SPEARE.

1564-1616.

THE RAVAGES OF TIME.

WHEN I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced

The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,

Or state itself confounded to decay;

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,—

That Time will come, and take my Love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

WILLIAM
SHAKE-

SPEARE.

1564-1616.

HOW TO DEFEAT TIME.

SINCE brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o'ersways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid ?

O, none, unless this miracle have might,

That in black ink my Love may still shine bright.

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