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LXX



That thou art blam\'d shall not be thy defect,

For slander\'s mark was ever yet the fair;

The ornament of beauty is suspect,

A crow that flies in heaven\'s sweetest air.

So thou be good, slander doth but approve

Thy worth the greater being woo\'d of time;

For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,

And thou present\'st a pure unstained prime.

Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days

Either not assail\'d, or victor being charg\'d;

Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,

To tie up envy, evermore enlarg\'d,

  If some suspect of ill mask\'d not thy show,

  Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXVI



O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power

Dost hold Time\'s fickle glass, his fickle hour;

Who hast by waning grown, and therein show\'st

Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow\'st.

If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,

As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,

She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill

May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.

Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!

She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:

  Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,

  And her quietus is to render thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

We must be steady enough in ourselves, to be open and to let the winds of life blow through us, to be our breath, our
inspiration; to breathe with them, mobile and soft in the limberness of our bodies, in our agility, our ability, as it were,
to dance, and yet to stand upright.
T. S. Eliot