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CIV



To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,

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 perceiv'd;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd:

  For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:

  Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

 	--William Shakespeare

CL



O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,

With insufficiency my heart to sway?

To make me give the lie to my true sight,

And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantise of skill,

That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?

Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,

The more I hear and see just cause of hate?

O! though I love what others do abhor,

With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:

  If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me,

  More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.

 	--William Shakespeare