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Shades of Reflection


    Shakespear's sonnets

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    Tula


    Posts : 463
    Join date : 2012-03-02

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    Post  Tula Thu Mar 15, 2012 4:56 pm

    FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
    That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
    But as the riper should by time decease,
    His tender heir might bear his memory:
    But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
    Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
    Making a famine where abundance lies,
    Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
    Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
    And only herald to the gaudy spring,
    Within thine own bud buriest thy content
    And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding.
    Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.


    Last edited by Tula on Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:02 pm; edited 1 time in total
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    Tula


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    Post  Tula Thu Mar 15, 2012 4:57 pm

    When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
    And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
    Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now,
    Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:
    Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,
    Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
    To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
    Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
    How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,
    If thou couldst answer, 'This fair child of mine
    Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'
    Proving his beauty by succession thine!
    This were to be new made when thou art old,
    And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it
    cold.


    Last edited by Tula on Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
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    Tula


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    Post  Tula Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:01 pm

    Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
    Now is the time that face should form another;
    Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
    Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some
    mother,
    For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
    Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
    Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
    Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
    Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
    Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
    So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
    Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
    But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
    Die single, and thine image dies with thee.


    -----

    Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
    Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?
    Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
    And being frank, she lends to those are free:
    Than, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
    The bounteous largess given thee to give?
    Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
    So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
    For having traffic with thyself alone,
    Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive:
    Then how, when Nature calls thee to be gone,
    What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
    Thy unus'd beauty must be tomb'd with thee,
    Which used, lives th' executor to be.

    -----


    Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
    The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
    Will play the tyrants to the very same
    And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
    For never-resting time leads summer on
    To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
    Sap check'd-with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
    Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:
    Then, were not summer's distillation left,
    A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
    Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
    Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was;
    But flowers distill'd, though they with winter
    meet,
    Leese but their show; their substance still lives
    sweet.

    -----

    Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
    In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
    Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
    With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
    That use is not forbidden usury,
    Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
    That's for thyself to breed another thee,
    Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
    Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
    If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee;
    Then what could death do, if thou shouldst de-
    part,
    Leaving thee living in posterity?
    Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
    To be death's conquest and make worms thine
    heir.

    -----

    Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
    Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
    Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
    Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
    And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,
    Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
    Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
    Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
    But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
    Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
    The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
    From his low tract, and look another way:
    So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon,
    Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.

    -----

    Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
    Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
    Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not
    gladly,
    Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
    If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
    By unions married, do offend thine ear,
    They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
    In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
    Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
    Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
    Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
    Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
    Whose speechless song, being many, seeming
    one,
    Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'

    -------

    For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,
    Who for thyself art so unprovident.
    Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many,
    But that thou none lov'st is most evident;
    For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate
    That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire,
    Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
    Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
    O! change thy thought, that I may change my
    mind:
    Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love?
    Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
    Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
    Make thee another self, for love of me,
    That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

    ------

    As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st
    In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
    And that fresh blood which youngly thou be-
    stow'st
    Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth
    convertest.
    Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase;
    Without this, folly, age and cold decay:
    If all were minded so, the times should cease
    And threescore year would make the world away.
    Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,
    Harsh, featureless and rude, barrenly perish:
    Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;
    Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty
    cherish:
    She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant thereby
    Thou shouldst print more, nor let that copy
    die.


    ----

    When I do count the clock that tells the time,
    And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
    When I behold the violet past prime,
    And sable curls, all silver'd o'er with white;
    When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
    Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
    And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
    Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
    Then of thy beauty do I question make,
    That thou among the wastes of time must go,
    Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
    And die as fast as they see others grow;
    And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make
    defence
    Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee
    hence.

    ------

    O! 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
    Find no determination; then you were
    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.

    ----
    Not from the stars do I my judgment 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,
    Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,
    Or say with princes if it shall go well,
    By oft predict that I in heaven find:
    But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
    And, constant stars, in them I read such art
    As 'Truth and beauty shall together thrive,
    If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;'
    Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
    'Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.'

    ---


    Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
    Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
    And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
    Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
    And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
    And every fair from fair sometime declines,
    By chance, or nature's changing course un-
    trimm'd;
    But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
    Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
    Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his
    shade,
    When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.



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