Sonnet 22
Praise and Beauty
- 1 My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
- 2 So long as youth and thou are of one date;
- 3 But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
- 4 Then look I death my days should expiate.
- 5 For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
- 6 Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
- 7 Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
- 8 How can I then be elder than thou art?
- 9 O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary
- 10 As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
- 11 Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
- 12 As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
- 13 Presume not on th; heart when mine is slain,
- 14 Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.