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 fade, my verse distills your truth.

- William Shakespeare

Popularity: unranked [?]

Related posts:

1. Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit...
2. Always for the first time Always for the first time Hardly do I know you...
3. Love Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were a...
4. To The Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love To Me, Imagined More Than Woman Air lovely maid, or if that title be Too weak,...
5. The Passionate Shepherd to His Love COME live with me and be my Love, And we...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.