Page:Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale.djvu/46

36 

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:

Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it; for I love you so,

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,

If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O, if, I say, you look upon this verse,

When I perhaps compounded am with clay,

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,

But let your love even with my life decay;

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

And mock you with me after I am gone.

 

O, lest the world should task you to recite

What merit lived in me, that you should love

After my death,—dear love, forget me quite,

For you in me can nothing worthy prove;

Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,

To do more for me than mine own desert,

And hang more praise upon deceased I

Than niggard truth would willingly impart:

O, lest your true love may seem false in this,

That you for love speak well of me untrue,

My name be buried where my body is,

And live no more to shame nor me nor you.

For I am sham'd by that which I bring forth,

And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

 3 Give warning to the world; cf. n.

7 would be: wish to be

10 compounded: mixed

11 rehearse: repeat  1 task: challenge

4 prove: discover

10 untrue: untruly

11 My name: let my name

14 should you: should you be shamed 