5
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel; 4
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
Sap check'd with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness everywhere: 8
Then, were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was: 12
But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.
6
Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd. 4
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; 8
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee;
Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity? 12
Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
2 gaze: object of sight, sight
4 unfair: deprive of beauty
fairly: in beauty
6 confounds: destroys
9, 10 Cf. n.
12 it: would it remain
14 Leese: lose
1 ragged: rugged
3 treasure: enrich
5 use: interest
6 happies: makes happy
10 refigur'd: reproduced in appearance
