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Looking on darkness which the blind do see. |
Save that my soul's imaginary sight |
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, |
Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night) |
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. |
Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind, |
For thee, and for my self, no quiet find. |
28 |
How can I then return in happy plight |
That am debarred the benefit of rest? |
When day's oppression is not eased by night, |
But day by night and night by day oppressed. |
And each (though enemies to either's reign) |
Do in consent shake hands to torture me, |
The one by toil, the other to complain |
How far I toil, still farther off from thee. |
I tell the day to please him thou art bright, |
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven: |
So flatter I the swart-complexioned night, |
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even. |
But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer, |
And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger |
29 |
When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, |
I all alone beweep my outcast state, |
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, |
And look upon my self and curse my fate, |
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, |
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, |
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, |
With what I most enjoy contented least, |
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising, |
Haply I think on thee, and then my state, |
(Like to the lark at break of day arising |
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate, |
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, |
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. |
30 |
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought, |
I summon up remembrance of things past, |
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, |
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: |
Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow) |
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, |
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe, |
And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight. |
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, |
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er |
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, |
Which I new pay as if not paid before. |
But if the while I think on thee (dear friend) |
All losses are restored, and sorrows end. |
31 |
Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts, |
Which I by lacking have supposed dead, |
And there reigns love and all love's loving parts, |
And all those friends which I thought buried. |
How many a holy and obsequious tear |
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye, |
As interest of the dead, which now appear, |
But things removed that hidden in thee lie. |
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live, |
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone, |
Who all their parts of me to thee did give, |
That due of many, now is thine alone. |
Their images I loved, I view in thee, |
And thou (all they) hast all the all of me. |
32 |
If thou survive my well-contented day, |
When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover |
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey |
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover: |
Compare them with the bett'ring of the time, |
And though they be outstripped by every pen, |
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, |
Exceeded by the height of happier men. |
O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought, |
'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, |
A dearer birth than this his love had brought |
To march in ranks of better equipage: |
But since he died and poets better prove, |
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'. |
33 |
Full many a glorious morning have I seen, |
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, |
Kissing with golden face the meadows green; |
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy: |
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride, |
With ugly rack on his celestial face, |
And from the forlorn world his visage hide |
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: |
Even so my sun one early morn did shine, |
With all triumphant splendour on my brow, |
But out alack, he was but one hour mine, |
The region cloud hath masked him from me now. |
Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth, |
Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth. |
34 |
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day, |
And make me travel forth without my cloak, |
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