Page:Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale.djvu/39

Shakespeare's Sonnets 

Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Upon the hours and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend,

Nor services to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour

Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,

Nor think the bitterness of absence sour

When you have bid your servant once adieu;

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,

But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought,

Save where you are how happy you make those.

So true a fool is love that in your will,

Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

 

That god forbid that made me first your slave,

I should in thought control your times of pleasure,

Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,

Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!

O, let me suffer, being at your beck,

The imprison'd absence of your liberty;

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,

Without accusing you of injury.

Be where you list, your charter is so strong

That you yourself may privilege your time

To what you will; to you it doth belong

Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.

I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,

Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

 5 world-without-end: never ending

10 suppose: conjecture  6 The imprison'd liberty; cf. n.

7 sufferance: suffering

check: rebuke

10 privilege: authorise

12 self-doing: done by yourself 