The former post was off topic and was thus removed as it was a violation of our
Great Books & Classics spirit. These forums are being phased out & replaced. Join us at our new
registration-only forums at:
jollyrogerwest.com Great Books forums,
Philosophy Forums,
and booksliterature.com Great Books forums.

Please respect that these are Great Books sites. We prefer discussions along the following
lines:

II



When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty\'s field,

Thy youth\'s proud livery so gazed on now,

Will be a tatter\'d weed of small worth held: 

Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days; 

To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.

How much more praise deserv\'d thy beauty\'s use,

If thou couldst answer \'This fair child of mine

Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,\'

Proving his beauty by succession thine!

  This were to be new made when thou art old,

  And see thy blood warm when thou feel\'st it cold.

 	--William Shakespeare

III



Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another;

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

For where is she so fair whose unear\'d womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,

Of his self-love to stop posterity? 

Thou art thy mother\'s glass and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime;

So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,

Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.

  But if thou live, remember\'d not to be,

  Die single and thine image dies with thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXIX



Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,

My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;

But now my gracious numbers are decay\'d,

And my sick Muse doth give an other place.

I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument

Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;

Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent

He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.

He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word

From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,

And found it in thy cheek: he can afford

No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live. 

  Then thank him not for that which he doth say,

  Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.

 	--William Shakespeare

We should measure welfare\'s success by how many people leave welfare, not
by how many are added.
Ronald Reagan