Astrophel and Stella: 102

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Where be those Roses gone, which sweetned so our eyes?Where those red cheeks, which oft with faire encrease did frameThe height of honor in the kindly badge of shame?Who hath the crimson weeds stolne from my morning skies?How doth the colour vade of those vermillion dies,Which nature selfe did make, and selfe engraind the same?I would know by what right this palenesse ouercameThat hue, whose force my hart still vnto thraledome ties?Galleins adoptiue sonnes, who by a beaten wayTheir judgements hackney on, the fault on sicknesse lay,But feeling proofe makes me (say they) mistake it furre:It is but loue which makes his paper perfite white,To write therein more fresh the story of delight,While beauties reddest inke Venus for him doth sturre.

© Sir Philip Sidney