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April 12th
2001

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corner Shakespeare Sonnets to Willie Hughes - Page 18 corner
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Sonnet 103

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Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument, all bare, is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside!
0h, blame me not if I no more can write!
Look in your glass, and there appears a face
That overgoes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
For to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell
          And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,
          Your own glass shows you when you look in it.

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Sonnet 104

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To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived.
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.
          For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred --
          Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

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Sonnet 105

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Let not my love be called idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence,
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
"Fair, kind, and true"' is all my argument,
"'Fair, kind, and true" varying to other words,
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
          "Fair, kind, and true" have often lived alone,
          Which three till now never kept seat in one.

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Sonnet 106

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When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
And, for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing,
          For we, which now behold these present days,
          Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

Willie Hughes is "the blazon of sweet beauty's best," the harlequin - like composite archetype of all the beautiful males and females described by the "antique pens" of the authors of ancient and medieval literature: he resembles not only the "lovely knights" but also the fair "ladies dead" of medieval romance.

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Sonnet 107

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Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a cónfined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage.
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, Ill live in this poor rhyme
While he insults oer dull and speechless tribes.
          And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
          When tyrants crests and tombs of brass are spent.

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Sonnet 108

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Whats in the brain that ink may character
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
Whats new to speak, what new to register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
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.
So that eternal love in loves fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page,
          Finding the first conceit of love there bred
          Where time and outward form would show it dead.

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