Your monument shall be my gentle verse, Which eyes not yet created shall o’er−read, And tongues to be your being shall rehearse When all the breathers of this world are dead; You shall still live—such virtue hath my pen— Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
From Sonnet 42 it appears that the young Earl had won the heart of the widow Sidney:
“That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I loved her dearly; That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief, A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders! thus I will excuse ye: Thou dost love her, because thou know’st I love her, And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.
If I lose thee, my loss is my love’s gain, And losing her, my friend hath found that loss; Both find each other, and I lose both twain, And both for my sake lay me on this cross: But here’s the joy: my friend and I are one; Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.”
The second part of the “Sonnets,” after 126, is addressed to the Earl’s bethrothed; we quote Sonnet 134:
“So now I have confessed that he is thine. And I myself am mortgaged to thy will, Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still; But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, For thou art covetous and he is kind; He learned but surety−like to write for me, Under that bond that him as fast doth bind, The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take, Thou usurer that put’st forth all to use, And sue a friend came debtor for my sake; So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me, He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.”
Incidentally it may be noted how familiar the writer of the above lines must have been with the practice of law. Shakspere’s legal knowledge has amazed the lawyers.
The next Sonnet introduces the name of “Will,” and puns upon it profusely:
“Whoever hath her wish thou hast thy Will, And Will to boot, and Will in overplus; More than enough am I that vex thee still, To thy sweet will making addition thus, Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious, Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious, And in my will no fair acceptance shine? The sea, all water, yet receives rain still, And in abundance addeth to his store:
