Page:Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale.djvu/73

Shakespeare's Sonnets 

Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy,

With my extern the outward honouring,

Or laid great bases for eternity,

Which prove more short than waste or ruining?

Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour

Lose all and more by paying too much rent,

For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,

Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?

No; let me be obsequious in thy heart,

And take thou my oblation, poor but free,

Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art,

But mutual render, only me for thee.

Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul

When most impeach'd stands least in thy control.

 

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power

Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle hour;

Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st

Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow'st;

If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,

As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,

She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill

May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.

Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!

She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:

Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be,

And her quietus is to render thee.

 1 Were 't: would it be

bore the canopy: canopy of state; did outward reverence

2 With my extern: outwardly

7 savour: perfume

8 in their gazing spent: wasting themselves in regarding externals

10 free: whole-hearted

11 seconds: inferior matter

12 render: surrender

13, 14 Cf. n.

 1–12 Cf. n.

2 sickle hour: hour when his sickle strikes

3 by waning grown: with age grown more beautiful

5 wrack: destruction

8 wretched minutes kill: kill time's minutes (that bring old age)

9 minion: darling

12 quietus: acquittance of the account 