| WHEN forty winters shall besiege thy brow | |
| And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, | |
| Thy youth’s proud livery, so gaz’d on now, | |
| Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held: | |
| Then being ask’d, where all thy beauty lies, | 5 |
| Where all the treasure of thy lusty days, | |
| To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, | |
| Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. | |
| How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use, | |
| If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine | 10 |
| Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’ | |
| Proving his beauty by succession thine! | |
| This were to be new made when thou art old, | |
| And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold. |