William Shakespeare
1564-1616
Sonnet LIV
O! how much
more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament
which truth doth give.
The rose looks fair,
but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour,
which doth in it live.
The canker blooms
have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture
of the roses.
Hang on such thorns,
and play as wantonly
When summer's breath
their masked buds discloses:
But, for their virtue
only is their show,
They live unwoo'd,
and unrespected fade;
Die to themselves.
Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths,
are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.
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