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| SONNET 54 |
| 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. |
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