Sonnet LIV

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem	1
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!	2
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem	3
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.	4
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye	5
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,	6
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly	7
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:	8
But, for their virtue only is their show,	9
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,	10
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;	11
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:	12
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,	13
When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.	14