Astrophil and Stella
Sonnet 102
Where be those roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes?
Where those red cheeks, which oft, with fair increase, did frame
The height of honour in the kindly badge of shame?
Who hath the crimson weeds stolen from my morning skies?
How doth the colour vade of those vermilion dyes,
Which nature's self did make, and self-ingrained the same?
I would know by what right this paleness overcame
That hue whose force my heart still unto thraldom ties?
Galen's adoptive sons, who by a beaten way
Their judgements hackney on, the fault on sickness lay;
But feeling proof makes me say they mistake it far:
It is but love which makes this paper perfect white,
To write therein more fresh the story of delight,
Whiles beauty's reddest ink Venus for him doth stir.
Sir Philip Sidney
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