Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel: For never-resting time leads summer on To hideous winter and confounds him there; Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where: Then, were not summer's distillation left, A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, Nor it nor no remembrance what it was: But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet, Lease but their show; their substance still lives sweet. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FLOWER GUIDANCE by ROBERT FROST MORNING IN CAMP by HERBERT BASHFORD CONSECRATION HYMN by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 51. WILLOWWOOD (3) by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION: BOOK 3 by MARK AKENSIDE |