Page:Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale.djvu/49

Shakespeare's Sonnets 

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,

Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;

The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,

And of this book this learning mayst thou taste.

The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show

Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;

Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know

Time's thievish progress to eternity.

Look! what thy memory cannot contain,

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find

Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy brain,

To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.

 

So oft have I invok'd thee for my Muse

And found such fair assistance in my verse

As every alien pen hath got my use

And under thee their poesy disperse.

Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing

And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

Have added feathers to the learned's wing

And given grace a double majesty.

Yet be most proud of that which I compile,

Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:

In others' works thou dost but mend the style,

And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;

But thou art all my art, and dost advance

As high as learning my rude ignorance.

 1–14 Cf. n.

4 Cf. n.

7 shady stealth: stealthy shadow

10 waste blanks: empty pages

11, 12 Cf. n.

13 offices; cf. n.  1–14 Cf. n.

3 As: that

use: habit

4 under thee: under thy patronage

disperse: spread abroad

9 compile: compose

10 influence: inspiration

13 advance: raise 