6. Then let not winter's ragged hand deface

Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,

In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:

Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed.

--

That use is not forbidden usury,

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

That's for thy self to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

--

Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:

Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,

Leaving thee living in posterity?

--

Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair

To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

--

Read by David Shaw-Parker