but why of two oaths breach do i accuse thee
when i break twenty i am perjured most
for all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee
and all my honest faith in thee is lost

take all my loves my love yea take them all
what hast thou then more than thou hadst before
no love my love that thou mayst true love call
all mine was thine before thou hadst this more

before the golden tresses of the dead
the right of sepulchres were shorn away
to live a second life on second head
ere beautys dead fleece made another gay

o that record could with a backward look
even of five hundred courses of the sun
show me your image in some antique book
since mind at first in character was done

for since each hand hath put on natures power
fairing the foul with arts false borrowed face
sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower
but is profaned if not lives in disgrace

or at the least so long as brain and heart
have faculty by nature to subsist
till each to razed oblivion yield his part
of thee thy record never can be missed

was it the proud full sail of his great verse
bound for the prize of all too precious you
that did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse
making their tomb the womb wherein they grew

herein lives wisdom beauty and increase
without this folly age and cold decay
if all were minded so the times should cease
and threescore year would make the world away

for through the painter must you see his skill
to find where your true image pictured lies
which in my bosoms shop is hanging still
that hath his windows glazed with thine eyes

how careful was i when i took my way
each trifle under truest bars to thrust
that to my use it might unused stay
from hands of falsehood in sure wards of trust

take all my loves my love yea take them all
what hast thou then more than thou hadst before
no love my love that thou mayst true love call
all mine was thine before thou hadst this more

our love was new and then but in the spring
when i was wont to greet it with my lays
as philomel in summers front doth sing
and stops her pipe in growth of riper days

when lofty trees i see barren of leaves
which erst from heat did canopy the herd
and summers green all girded up in sheaves
borne on the bier with white and bristly beard

sin of self love possesseth all mine eye
and all my soul and all my every part
and for this sin there is no remedy
it is so grounded inward in my heart

look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
now is the time that face should form another
whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest
thou dost beguile the world unbless some mother

nothing sweet boy but yet like prayers divine
i must each day say oer the very same
counting no old thing old thou mine i thine
even as when first i hallowed thy fair name

then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright
how would thy shadows form form happy show
to the clear day with thy much clearer light
when to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so

why didst thou promise such a beauteous day
and make me travel forth without my cloak
to let base clouds oertake me in my way
hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke

whilst i alone did call upon thy aid
my verse alone had all thy gentle grace
but now my gracious numbers are decayed
and my sick muse doth give another place

o how thy worth with manners may i sing
when thou art all the better part of me
what can mine own praise to mine own self bring
and what ist but mine own when i praise thee