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It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have
learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.
Ronald Reagan

LIV



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 vade, by verse distills your truth.

 	--William Shakespeare

XCV



How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame

Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,

Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!

O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.

That tongue that tells the story of thy days,

Making lascivious comments on thy sport,

Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;

Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.

O! what a mansion have those vices got

Which for their habitation chose out thee,

Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot

And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!

  Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;

  The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lose his edge.

 	--William Shakespeare

VII



Lo! in the orient when the gracious light

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

Serving with looks his sacred majesty; 

And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,

Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

Attending on his golden pilgrimage:

But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,

Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,

The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are

From his low tract, and look another way:

  So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:

  Unlook'd, on diest unless thou get a son.

 	--William Shakespeare