Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Francis T. Palgrave, ed. (1824–1897). The Golden Treasury. 1875.

William Shakespeare

XIV. “To me, fair Friend, you never can be old”

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.