No want of conscience hold it that I call,
Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.
Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,
Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,
Make thee another self for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate...
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created...
O let me true in love but truly write...
More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.
O learn to read what silent love hath writ,
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
Then happy I that love and am beloved
Where I may not remove nor be removed.
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,
Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me...
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings....
Their images I loved, I view in thee,
And thou (all they) hast all the all of me...
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,
This wish I have, then ten times happy me.
