WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear: That love is merchandised whose rich esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere. Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays ; As Philomel in summer's front doth sing And stops her pipe in growth of riper days : Not that the summer is less pleasant now Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, But that wild music burthens every bough, And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue, Because I would not dull you with my song.

If p. XV

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 Summers' pride; Three beauteous springs to yellow Autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, 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.

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