Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/235

 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

169 (xv)

TO me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three Winters cold Have from the forests shook three Summers* pride ; Three beauteous Springs to yellow Autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in thice hot Junes burn'd, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green, Ah' yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived; So your sweet hue, which methmks still doth stand, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived*

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred.

Ere you were born was beauty's Summer dead.

770 (xvi)

WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rime In praise of Ladies dead and lovely Knights; Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have exprest Even such a beauty as you master now. So all their praises are but prophecies Of this our time, all you prefiguring; And for they look'd but with divining eyes, They had not skill enough your worth to sing: For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

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