William Shakespeare (1564-1616) – Sonnet LIV

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
 By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
 The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
 For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
 The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
 As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
 Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
 When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:
 But, for their virtue only is their show,
 They live unwoo’d and unrespected fade,
 Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
 Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
 And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
 When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.

William Shakespeare