Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)

From “Delia”

BEAUTY, sweet Love, is like the morning dew,

Whose short refresh upon the tender green

Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth shew,

And straight ’tis gone as it had never been.

Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish,

Short is the glory of the blushing rose;

The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish,

Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose.

When thou, surcharged with burthen of thy years,

Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth,

And that, in Beauty’s Lease expired, appears

The Date of Age, the Kalends of our Death—

But ah! no more!—this must not be foretold,

For women grieve to think they must be old.