Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Text/Sonnet 54
54
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. 4
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: 8
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: 12
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall vade, my verse distils your truth.
5 canker-blooms: dog-roses, scentless wild roses
6 tincture: color
8 discloses: unfolds, opens
9 only is their show: consists only in their appearance
10 unrespected: unregarded
11 to themselves: all alone
14 that: that beauty, that youth
vade: fade
distils: preserves the essence of