Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface,
In summer be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure some place,
With beauty’s treasure it be self-killed:
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thyself to breed another ,
Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
Ten times thyself were happier than art,
If ten of ten times refigured :
Then what could death do if depart,
Leaving living in posterity?
Be not self-willed for art much too fair,
To be death’s conquest and make worms heir.
Sonnet 6
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Modern spelling for reading. The edition is public domain in the United States. Edition source.