Page:Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale.djvu/69

Shakespeare's Sonnets 

Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all

Wherein I should your great deserts repay,

Forgot upon your dearest love to call,

Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

That I have frequent been with unknown minds,

And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right;

That I have hoisted sail to all the winds

Which should transport me furthest from your sight.

Book both my wilfulness and errors down,

And on just proof surmise accumulate;

Bring me within the level of your frown,

But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate;

Since my appeal says I did strive to prove

The constancy and virtue of your love.

 

Like as, to make our appetites more keen,

With eager compounds we our palate urge;

As, to prevent our maladies unseen,

We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;

Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,

To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;

And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness

To be diseas'd, ere that there was true needing.

Thus policy in love, to anticipate

The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd,

And brought to medicine a healthful state,

Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd;

But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,

Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

 1 scanted: grudged

5 frequent: intimate

unknown: unimportant

6 given to time: wasted

10 on accumulate: add suspected to proved offences

11 level: aim  1 Like as: just as

2 eager compounds: bitter mixtures

palate urge: stimulate the appetite

7 welfare: good health

12 rank of: cloyed with 