243Though yet heauen knowes it is but as a tombe

244Which hides your life , and shewes not halfe your parts:

245If I could write the beauty of your eyes,

246And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

247The age to come would say this Poet lies,

248Such heauenly touches nere toucht earthly faces.

249So should my papers (yellowed with their age)

250Be scorn'd, like old men of lesse truth then tongue,

251And your true rights be termd a Poets rage,

252And stretched miter of an Antique song.

253 But were some childe of yours aliue that time,

254You should liue twise in it, and in my rime.

256SHall I compare thee to a Summers day?

257Thou art more louely and more temperate:

258Rough windes do shake the darling buds of Maie,

259And Sommers lease hath all too short a date:

260Sometime too hot the eye of heauen shines,

261And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,

262And euery faire from faire some-time declines,

263By chance, or natures changing course vntrim'd:

264But thy eternall Sommer shall not fade,

265Nor loose possession of that faire thou ow'st,

266Nor shall death brag thou wandr'st in his shade,

267When in eternall lines to time thou grow'st,

268 So long as men can breath or eyes can see,

269So long liues this, and this giues life to thee,

271DEuouring time blunt thou the Lyons pawes,

272And make the earth deuoure her owne sweet brood,

273Plucke the keene teeth from the fierce Tygers yawes,

274And burne the long liu'd Phaenix in her blood,

275Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,

276And do what ere thou wilt swift-footed time

277To the wide world and all her fading sweets:

278But I forbid thee one most hainous crime,