Classic Poem

A Tirant great, faire Beautie is in Love,
When it doth triumph in a lovely face:
And who with cold Disdaine , this doth not move,
Is caught by subtill sweet alluring Grace:
 Who stands at Beauties Gaze , and doth not flie,
 Is soone entrapt by wilfull glancing eye.

This which of true Love is but Picture bare,
With shadowing Vale doth dimme our cleerest sight:
And if to follow it we do not spare,
It soone deceives us with a false delight,
 And to perpetuall prison sends our soule,
 Unles her sleights by Reason we controule.

Faire Pearle , fine gold, base excrements of th'earth;
Whats Beautie , but a little White and Red?
Revived with a little lively Breath ,
With Winde , or Sunne , or Sicknes altered?
 All this doth Time consume and bring to nought,
 And all what ere into this world is brought.

The fairest Colours drie and vanish shall;
The yongst must pack as well as doth the Olde ,
All mortall things to mortall death must fall,
And therefore first were cast in earthly molde.
 That which doth florish greene as grasse to-day,
 Tomorow withereth like to dried Hay.