Sonnet XLV. Beauty, sweet love! is like the morning dew

Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)

BEAUTY, sweet love! is like the morning dew;

Whose short refresh upon the tender green,

Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show:

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 burden of thy years,

Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth;

When Time hath made a passport for thy fears,

Dated in age, the Kalends of our death:

But, ah! no more! This hath been often told;

And women grieve to think they must be old.