(54) Shakespeare Sonnet LIV – O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

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 unwooed, 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 vade, by verse distills your truth.

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