Page 2050 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

104 IT

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 summer’s pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned

In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
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 methinks 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.