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 fade, my verse distills your truth. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SECOND OPINION by STEPHEN CUSHMAN THE WOODLARK by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS SAGE COUNSEL by ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH VALENTINES TO MY MOTHER: 1880 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI TO THE MAN-OF-WAR-BIRD by WALT WHITMAN THE RAZOR-SELLER by JOHN WOLCOTT AGAMEMNON: THE SACRIFICE OF IPHIGENIA. CHORUS by AESCHYLUS BRUCE CONSULTS HIS MEN by JOHN BARBOUR STANZAS, COMPOSED WHILE WALKING ON WARREN HILL, EARLY SUMMER'S MORNING by BERNARD BARTON |