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William Shakespeare (1564–1616). The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems. 1914.
“To me, fair friend, you never can be old”
To me, fair friend, you never can be old |
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| For as you were when first your eye I ey’d, |
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| Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold |
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| Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride, |
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| Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d |
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| In process of the seasons have I seen, |
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| Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d, |
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| Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. |
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| Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, |
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| Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv’d; |
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| So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, |
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| Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv’d: |
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| For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred: |
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| Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead. | |
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