Open Source Shakespeare

Sonnets

• To print this text, click here
• To save this text, go to your browser's File menu, then select Save As


       

Act I, Scene 6

---

       

  • Shakespeare. Then let not winter's ragged hand deface
    In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
    Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
    With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
    That use is not forbidden usury, 75
    Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
    That's for thyself to breed another thee,
    Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
    Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
    If ten of thine ten times refigured thee: 80
    Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,
    Leaving thee living in posterity?
    Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
    To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.