The Procreation Sonnets (1 - 17)
The Procreation Sonnets are grouped together
because they all address the same young man,
and all encourage him — with a variety of
themes and arguements — to marry and father
children (hence 'procreation').
———————————————————————————————————————
———— IFrom fairest creatures we desire increase,That thereby beauty's rose might never die,But as the riper should by time decease,His tender heir might bear his memory:But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,Making a famine where abundance lies,Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,And only herald to the gaudy spring,Within thine own bud buriest thy content,And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:Pity the world, or else this glutton be,To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee. IIWhen forty winters shall besiege thy brow,And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,Will be a totter'd weed of small worth held:Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mineShall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'Proving his beauty by succession thine!This were to be new made when thou art old,And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold. IIILook in thy glass and tell the face thou viewestNow is the time that face should form another;Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.For where is she so fair whose unear'd wombDisdains the tillage of thy husbandry?Or who is he so fond will be the tombOf his self-love, to stop posterity?Thou art thy mother's glass and she in theeCalls back the lovely April of her prime;So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.But if thou live, remember'd not to be,Die single and thine image dies with thee. IVUnthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spendUpon thy self thy beauty's legacy?Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,And being frank she lends to those are free:Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuseThe bounteous largess given thee to give?Profitless usurer, why dost thou useSo great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?For having traffic with thy self alone,Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,What acceptable audit canst thou leave?Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,Which, used, lives th' executor to be. VThose hours, that with gentle work did frameThe lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,Will play the tyrants to the very sameAnd that unfair which fairly doth excel;For never-resting time leads summer onTo hideous winter, and confounds him there;Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:Then were not summer's distillation left,A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet. VIThen let not winter's ragged hand deface,In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some placeWith beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed.That use is not forbidden usury,Which happies those that pay the willing loan;That's for thy self to breed another thee,Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,Leaving thee living in posterity?Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fairTo be death's conquest and make worms thine heir. VIILo! in the orient when the gracious lightLifts up his burning head, each under eyeDoth homage to his new-appearing sight,Serving with looks his sacred majesty;And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,Resembling strong youth in his middle age,Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,Attending on his golden pilgrimage:But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted areFrom his low tract, and look another way:So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noonUnlooked on diest unless thou get a son. VIIIMusic to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,By unions married, do offend thine ear,They do but sweetly chide thee, who confoundsIn singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;Resembling sire and child and happy mother,Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.' IXIs it for fear to wet a widow's eye,That thou consum'st thy self in single life?Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;The world will be thy widow and still weepThat thou no form of thee hast left behind,When every private widow well may keepBy children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:Look what an unthrift in the world doth spendShifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,And kept unused the user so destroys it.No love toward others in that bosom sitsThat on himself such murd'rous shame commits. XFor shame deny that thou bear'st love to any,Who for thy self art so unprovident.Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,But that thou none lov'st is most evident:For thou art so possessed with murderous hate,That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinateWhich to repair should be thy chief desire.O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:Make thee another self for love of me,That beauty still may live in thine or thee. XIAs fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'stIn one of thine, from that which thou departest;And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;Without this folly, age, and cold decay:If all were minded so, the times should ceaseAnd threescore year would make the world away.Let those whom nature hath not made for store,Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:Look whom she best endow'd, she gave the more;Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant thereby,Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die. XIIWhen I do count the clock that tells the time,And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;When I behold the violet past prime,And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,Then of thy beauty do I question make,That thou among the wastes of time must go,Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsakeAnd die as fast as they see others grow;And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defenceSave breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. XIIIO! that you were your self; but, love, you areNo longer yours, than you your self here live:Against this coming end you should prepare,And your sweet semblance to some other give:So should that beauty which you hold in leaseFind no determination; then you wereYourself again, after yourself's decease,When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,Which husbandry in honour might uphold,Against the stormy gusts of winter's dayAnd barren rage of death's eternal cold?O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,You had a father: let your son say so. XIVNot from the stars do I my judgement pluck;And yet methinks I have Astronomy,But not to tell of good or evil luck,Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,Or say with princes if it shall go wellBy oft predict that I in heaven find:But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,And, constant stars, in them I read such artAs truth and beauty shall together thrive,If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert;Or else of thee this I prognosticate:Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date. XVWhen I consider every thing that growsHolds in perfection but a little moment,That this huge stage presenteth nought but showsWhereon the stars in secret influence comment;When I perceive that men as plants increase,Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,And wear their brave state out of memory;Then the conceit of this inconstant staySets you most rich in youth before my sight,Where wasteful Time debateth with decayTo change your day of youth to sullied night,And all in war with Time for love of you,As he takes from you, I engraft you new. XVIBut wherefore do not you a mightier wayMake war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?And fortify your self in your decayWith means more blessed than my barren rhyme?Now stand you on the top of happy hours,And many maiden gardens, yet unset,With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,Much liker than your painted counterfeit:So should the lines of life that life repair,Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,Can make you live your self in eyes of men.To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill. XVIIWho will believe my verse in time to come,If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tombWhich hides your life, and shows not half your parts.If I could write the beauty of your eyes,And in fresh numbers number all your graces,The age to come would say 'This poet lies;Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,And your true rights be term'd a poet's rageAnd stretched metre of an antique song:But were some child of yours alive that time,You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.
