When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed 'pon now
Will be a tattered weed, of small worth held.

Sweetest things turn
Sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell worse than weeds.

Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.

Make the earth devour
Her own brood,
And burn the long-lived
Phœnix in her blood.