Page:Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale.djvu/33

Shakespeare's Sonnets 

The other two, slight air and purging fire,

Are both with thee, wherever I abide;

The first my thought, the other my desire,

These present-absent with swift motion slide.

For when these quicker elements are gone

In tender embassy of love to thee,

My life, being made of four, with two alone

Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy;

Until life's composition be recur'd

By those sweet messengers return'd from thee,

Who even but now come back again, assur'd

Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:

This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,

I send them back again, and straight grow sad.

 

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,

How to divide the conquest of thy sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,

My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,—

A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes,—

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To 'cide this title is impanelled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;

And by their verdict is determined

The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part:

As thus ; mine eye's due is thine outward part,

And my heart's right thine inward love of heart.

 9 life's composition: union of the four elements

recur'd: restored  9 impanelled: enrolled

10 quest: jury

12 moiety: share 