Sonnet 69
Devouring Time
- 1 Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
- 2 Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
- 3 All tongues—the voice of souls—give thee that due,
- 4 Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
- 5 Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;
- 6 But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,
- 7 In other accents do this praise confound
- 8 By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
- 9 They look into the beauty of thy mind,
- 10 And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;
- 11 Then—churls—their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
- 12 To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
- 13 But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
- 14 The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.