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 stol’n from my morning skies?
How doth the colour vade of those vermilion dyes,
Which
nature’s self did make, and
self engrained 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
judgments hackney on, the
fault on sickness lay,
But feeling proof makes me say they mistake it far:
It is
but love, which makes his
paper perfect white
To write
therein more fresh the
story of delight,
While beauty’s reddest ink Venus for him doth stir.