| John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896. | | | | Appendix A. Doubtful Poems | | Believe your Glass |
| | | BELIEVE your glass, and it will tell you, dear, | |
| Your eyes enshrine | |
| A brighter shine | |
| Than fair Apollo; look if there appear | |
| The milky sky, | 5 |
| The crimson dye | |
| Mixed in your cheeks; and then bid Phoebus set; | |
| More glory than he owes appears. But yet | |
| |
| … Be not deceived with false alteration: * * * * * | |
| As Cynthia’s globe, | 10 |
| A snow-white robe, | |
| Is soonest spotted; a carnation dye | |
| Fades and discolours, opened but to eye. | |
| |
| Make use of youth and beauty while they flourish, | |
| Time never sleeps; | 15 |
| Though it but creeps | |
| It still gets forward. Do not vainly nourish | |
| Them to self-use: | |
| It is abuse; | |
| The richest grounds lying waste turn bogs and rot, | 20 |
| And so being useless were as good were not. | |
| |
| Walk in a meadow by a river-side, | |
| Upon whose banks | |
| Grow milk-white ranks | |
| Of full-blown lilies in their height of pride, | 25 |
| Which downward bend, | |
| And nothing tend | |
| Save their own beauties in their glassy stream: | |
| Look to yourself; compare yourself with them— | |
| |
| In show, in beauty: mark what follows then; | 30 |
| Summer must end, | |
| The sun must bend | |
| Its long absented beams to others; when | |
| Their Spring being crossed | |
| By winter’s frost, | 35 |
| And snipped by bitter storms ’gainst which nought boots, | |
| They bend their proud tops lower than their roots. | |
| |
| Then none regard them, but with heedless feet | |
| In dust each treads | |
| Their declin’d heads. | 40 |
| So when youth’s wasted, Age and you shall meet; | |
| Then I alone | |
| Shall sadly moan | |
| That interview; others it will not move; | |
| So light regard we what we little love. | 45 | | | |
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