Sonnet 6

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface

In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill’d:

Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

With beauty’s treasure, ere it be self-kill’d.

That use is not forbidden usury,

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

That’s for thyself to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one.

Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigured thee;

Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,

Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not self-will’d, for thou art much too fair

To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.

So don’t let winter’s sharp and jagged blade

Cut the summer of your life before you’ve saved it.

Sweeten some vial, store some treasure you have made,

Help the world before you have left it.

Your investment will come back to you

In joy for having enriched the halfdark years.

That’s yours to keep, as time is true,

And sorrows turn to happier tears.

Make a hundred gifts, a thousand—

In each you’ll see yourself renewed:

Changed, refigured, but still the same strand

Of thread that you first sewed.

Do not be selfish, for your beauty is too thriving

Now to let death later stop it from living.