WILLIAM
SHAKE-
SPEARE.

1564-1616.

WEARINESS.

TIRED with all these, for restful death I cry,

As, to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour, shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,

And simple truth miscalled simplicity,

And captive good attending captain ill:

Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,

Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

UNSELFISH LOVE.

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell :

Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it; for I love you so,

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse

When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,

But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

And mock you with me after I am gone.

WILLIAM
SHAKE-
SPEARE.

1564-1616.

LIFE'S AUTUMN.

THAT time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west;

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

THE OLD STORY.

WILLIAM WHY is my verse so barren of new pride,

SHAKE

SPEARE.

1564-1616.

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.

WILLIAM
SHAKE-
SPEARE.

1564-1616.

FAREWELL!

FAREWELL! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou knowest thy estimate :
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing ;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment making.
Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep, a king, but waking no such matter.