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