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LXV



Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o\'ersways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O! how shall summer\'s honey breath hold out,

Against the wrackful siege of battering days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall Time\'s best jewel from Time\'s chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

  O! none, unless this miracle have might,

  That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

 	--William Shakespeare

O, thou art fairer than the evening\'s air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
-Faustus, 1604

XXXIV



Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,

And make me travel forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds o\'ertake me in my way,

Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?

\'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak,

That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;

Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:

The offender\'s sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence\'s cross. 

  Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,

  And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

 	--William Shakespeare