Sonnets vi
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 unwoo’d 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, my verse distils your truth.





Related poetry:
- Sonet LIV O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, […]...
- Sonnet 54: 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, […]...
- Sonnet 70: That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair; The ornament of […]...
- Sonnet LXX That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair; The ornament of […]...
- Sonnets iv THY bosom is endeared with all hearts Which I, by lacking, have supposed dead: And there reigns Love, and all […]...
- Sonnets i SHALL I compare thee to a Summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the […]...
- Sonnet CIV To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such […]...
- Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such […]...
- Sonnets xiv MY love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear: That love […]...
- Sonnets XVIII: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the […]...
- Sonnet 93: So shall I live, supposing thou art true So shall I live, supposing thou art true, Like a deceivèd husband; so love’s face May still seem love to […]...
- Sonnet XCIII So shall I live, supposing thou art true, Like a deceived husband; so love’s face May still seem love to […]...
- Sonnets LX: Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shor Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place […]...
- A Bunch of Roses Roses ruddy and roses white, What are the joys that my heart discloses? Sitting alone in the fading light Memories […]...
- Sonnets 06: No Rose That In A Garden Ever Grew No rose that in a garden ever grew, In Homer’s or in Omar’s or in mine, Though buried under centuries […]...
- Sonnet LXXIX Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace, But now my gracious […]...
- Sonnets viii THAT time of year thou may’st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those […]...
- Sonnet 79: Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid, My verse alone had all thy gentle grace, But now my gracious […]...
- Sonnet 43: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when […]...
- Sonnet XLIII When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when […]...
- Stanzas to Flora LET OTHERS wreaths of ROSES twine With scented leaves of EGLANTINE; Enamell’d buds and gaudy flow’rs, The pride of FLORA’S […]...
- A Calendar of Sonnets: March Month which the warring ancients strangely styled The month of war, as if in their fierce ways Were any month […]...
- A Calendar of Sonnets: August Silence again. The glorious symphony Hath need of pause and interval of peace. Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds […]...
- Finale Here is this vale of sweet abiding, My ultimate and dulcet home, That gently dreams above the chiding Of restless […]...
- The nymph’s reply to the shepherd If all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd’s tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move […]...
- Her Reply IF all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd’s tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move […]...
- A Calendar of Sonnets: April No days such honored days as these! While yet Fair Aphrodite reigned, men seeking wide For some fair thing which […]...
- Sonnet XXXII: Blest As the Gods Blest as the Gods! Sicilian Maid is he, The youth whose soul thy yielding graces charm; Who bound, O! thraldom […]...
- Asking For Roses A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master, With doors that none but the wind ever closes, Its floor all […]...
- The Faded Bouquet FAIR was this blushing ROSE of May, And fresh it hail’d morn’s breezy hour, When ev’ry spangled leaf look’d gay, […]...
- A Calendar of Sonnets: June O month whose promise and fulfilment blend, And burst in one! it seems the earth can store In all her […]...
- The Song of Quoodle They haven’t got no noses, The fallen sons of Eve; Even the smell of roses Is not what they supposes; […]...
- Stanzas to the Rose SWEET PICTURE of Life’s chequer’d hour! Ah, wherefore droop thy blushing head? Tell me, oh tell me, hap’less flow’r, Is […]...
- Sonnets xvii O NEVER say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify! As easy might I […]...
- Sonnet VI: Some Lovers Speak Some lovers speak when they their Muses entertain, Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires: Of force […]...
- On Elizabeth L. H Epitaphs i WOULDST thou hear what Man can say In a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As […]...
- Sonnets ix FAREWELL! thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know’st thy estimate: The charter of thy worth […]...
- The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: VI Rose, you majesty-once, to the ancients, you were Just a calyx with the simplest of rims. But for us, you […]...
- Hidden Flame Feed a flame within, which so torments me That it both pains my heart, and yet contains me: ‘Tis such […]...
- Sonnets CX: Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there Alas, ’tis true I have gone here and there And made myself a motley to the view, Gor’d mine own […]...