William Shakespeare

Sonnet xv

TO me, fair friend, you never can be old;
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three Winters cold
Have from the forests shook three Summers’ pride;

Three beauteous Springs to yellow Autumn turn’d
In process of the seasons I have seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green,

Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty’s Summer dead.