William Shakespeare
1564-1616
Sonnet LXIX
Those parts
of thee that the world's eye doth view
Want nothing that
the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues--the voice
of souls--give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth,
even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with
outward praise is crown'd;
But those same tongues,
that give thee so thine own,
In other accents do
this praise confound
By seeing farther
than the eye hath shown.
They look into the
beauty of thy mind,
And that in guess
they measure by thy deeds;
Then--churls--their
thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower
add the rank smell of weeds:
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.
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