Page:Shakespeare Collection of Poems.djvu/46

And not the least of all these maladies,
But in one minutes sight brings beauty under:
Both favour, savour hiew and qualities,
Whereat th' impartial gazer late did wonder,
Are on the sudden wasted, thaw'd and done,
As mountain-snow melts with the mid-day Sun.

Therefore, despight of fruitless chastity,
Love-lacking Vestals, and self-loving Nuns,
That on the earth would breed a scarcity,
And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,
Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night,
Dries up his oyl, to lend the world his light.

What is thy body, but a swallowing Grave,
Seeming to bury that posterity,
Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?
If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,
Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.

So in thy self thy self art made away,
A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife,
Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,
Or Butcher Sire, that reaves his son of life.
Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets:
But Gold that's put to use more Gold begets.

Nay then, quoth Adon, you will fall again
Into your idle over-handled Theam,

The