II.

When forty winters fhall befiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:
Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lufty days,
To say, within thine own deep-funken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,

If thou couldst answer This fair child of mine

Shall fum my count and make my old excuse,'
Proving his beauty by fucceffion thine!

This were to be new made when thou art old,
And fee thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

III.

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou vieweft
Now is the time that face fhould form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou doft beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Difdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he fo fond will be the tomb
Of his felf-love, to stop pofterity?

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls 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, rememb'red not to be,

Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

IV.

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?

Nature's bequeft gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank, she lends to those are free:
Then, beauteous niggard, why doft thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless ufurer, why doft thou use

So great a fum of fums, yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thyfelf alone,

Thou of thyself thy sweet self doft deceive:
Then how, when Nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canft thou leave?

Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee, Which, used, lives th' executor to be.

V.

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very fame
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-refting time leads fummer on

To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
Sap check'd with froft, and lufty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'erfnow'd and bareness every where:
Then, were not summer's diftillation left,

A liquid prifoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:

But flowers diftill'd, though they with winter meet,
Leefe but their fhow; their fubftance ftill lives

fweet.

VI.

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
In thee thy fummer, ere thou be diftill'd:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
That use is not forbidden usury,

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee;

Then what could death do, if thou shouldft depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair

To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.