When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself, and curse my fate
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising
Haply I think on thee, and then my state
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings
They that have power to hurt, and will do none
That do not do the thing they most do show
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces
Others, but stewards of their excellence
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet
Though to itself, it only live and die
But if that flower with base infection meet
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds
Lyrics provided by LRCLIB
