Where be those roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes? Where those red cheeks, which oft with fair increase did frame The height of honour in the kindly badge of shame? Who hath the crimson weeds stolen from my morning skies? How doth the colour vade of those vermilion dyes, Which nature's self did make, and self engrained the same? I would know by what right this paleness overcame That hue, whose force my heart still unto thraldom ties? Galen's adoptive sons, who by a beaten way Their judgements hackney on, the fault on sickness lay; But feeling proof makes me say they mistake it far: It is but love, which makes his paper perfect white To write therein more fresh the story of delight, While beauty's reddest ink Venus for him doth stir. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MOTHER NATURE by EMILY DICKINSON THE OLD MAN'S WISH by WALTER POPE IN MEMORIAM (EASTER 1915) by PHILIP EDWARD THOMAS ODES: BOOK 2: ODE 4. TO THE HON. CHARLES TOWNSHEND, IN THE COUNTRY by MARK AKENSIDE THE PILGRIM SHIP by KATHARINE LEE BATES |