128. One Hundred and Fourth Sonnet

TO me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For as you were when first your eye I eyed

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold

Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride;

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d

In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,—

Ere you were born, was beauty’s summer dead.