Eighteen
I will not compare thee to a winter's night.
I am as loathsome and as desolate:
Mild doldrums spoil the oldest roots of June,
And winter's hoard lies long beneath the dune;
Always too cold the worldly vision dims,
And seldom seen our rusty honour's gleams;
And every grey with grey always is blued,
By fate or human's concrete block subdued;
But thy ephem'ral winter is too short,
Will melt in hands that crave what is not bought;
Will be consumed by fashion's quick'ning shrines,
Thou'll not be buried under mortal lines:
So soon as one short breath, or glimpse too brief,
So soon dies this, and so take life from death.
contra Shakespeare's sonnet
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