Page 2015 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

69 IT

Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view

Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned;

But those same tongues that give thee so thine own
In other accents do this praise confound,
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind

And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds;
Then, churls their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds;
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,

The soil is this: that thou dost common grow.