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I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs By the known rules of ancient liberty, When straight a barbarous noise environs me Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs: As when those hinds that were transform'd to frogs Rail'd at Latona's twin-born progeny Which after held the sun and moon in fee. But this is got by casting pearl to hogs, That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, And still revolt when truth would set them free. Licence they mean when they cry liberty; For who loves that, must first be wise and good. But from that mark how far they rove we see, For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood.

’Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed When not to be receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed Not by our feeling but by others' seeing. For why should others’ false adulterate eyes Give salutation to my sportive blood? Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, Which in their wills count bad that I think good? No, I am that I am; and they that level At my abuses reckon up their own: I may be straight though they themselves be bevel; By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown, Unless this general evil they maintain: All men are bad and in their badness reign.

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change: Thy pyramids built up with newer might To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; They are but dressings of a former sight. Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old, And rather make them born to our desire Than think that we before have heard them told. Thy registers and thee I both defy, Not wondering at the present nor the past; For thy records and what we see doth lie, Made more or less by that continual haste. This I do vow, and this shall ever be: I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.

Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which proves more short than waste or ruining; Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent, For compound sweet forgoing simple savour, Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent? No;—let me be obsequious in thy heart, And take thou my oblation, poor but free, Which is not mix’d with seconds, knows no art, But mutual render, only me for thee. Hence, thou suborn’d informer! a true soul, When most impeach’d, stands least in thy control.

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy pow’r Dost hold time’s fickle glass his sickle hour, Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st— In nature, sovereign mistress over wrack, As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back, She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill May time disgrace, and wretched minute kill. Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure; She may detain but not still keep her treasure. Her audit, though delayed, answered must be, And her quietus is to render thee.

I lift—lift you five States away your glass, Wide of this bar you never graced, where none Ever I know came, where what work is done Even by these men I know not, where a brass Police-car sign peers in, wet strange cars pass, Soiled hangs the rag of day out over this town, A juke-box brains air where I drink alone, The spruce barkeep sports a toupee alas— My glass I lift at six o'clock, my darling, As you plotted . . Chinese couples shift in bed, We shared today not even filthy weather, Beasts in the hills their tigerish love are snarling, Suddenly they clash, I blow my short ash red, Grey eyes light! and we have our drink together.

To Mr. H. Lawes, On His Airs Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song First taught our English music how to span Words with just note and accent, not to scan With Midas’ ears, committing short and long, Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, With praise enough for Envy to look wan; To after-age thou shalt be writ the man That with smooth air couldst humor best our tongue. Thou honor’st Verse, and Verse must lend her wing To honor thee, the priest of Phœbus’ choir, That tun’st their happiest lines in hymn or story. Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing, Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me: Is’t not enough to torture me alone, But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be? Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken, And my next self thou harder hast engrossed; Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken, A torment thrice threefold thus to be crossed. Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward, But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail; Whoe’er keeps me, let my heart be his guard: Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail. And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee, Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.

So now I have confessed that he is thine, And I my self am mortgaged to thy will, Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still: But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, For thou art covetous, and he is kind; He learned but surety-like to write for me, Under that bond that him as fast doth bind. The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, Thou usurer, that put’st forth all to use, And sue a friend came debtor for my sake; So him I lose through my unkind abuse. Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me: He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.