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When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind. -John Dryden, 1700

XI



As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow\'st,

In one of thine, from that which thou departest;

And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow\'st,

Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest,

Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;

Without this folly, age, and cold decay:

If all were minded so, the times should cease

And threescore year would make the world away.

Let those whom nature hath not made for store,

Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:

Look, whom she best endow\'d, she gave thee more;

Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:

  She carv\'d thee for her seal, and meant thereby,

  Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

 	--William Shakespeare

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

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. --Albert
Einstein