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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  159. Sonnets xv

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

William Shakespeare. 1564–1616

159. Sonnets xv

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         5
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;  10
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.