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 fade, my verse distills your truth.
- William Shakespeare
