Autumnal

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace

As I have seen in one autumnal face.

Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,

This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape.

If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame;

Affection here takes reverence's name.

Were her first years the golden age? That's true,

But now she's gold oft tried and ever new.

That was her torrid and inflaming time,

This is her tolerable tropic clime.

This is Love's timber, youth his underwood;

There he, as wine in June, enrages blood,

Which then comes seasonanbliest when our taste

And appetite to other things is past.

Here where still evening is, not noon nor night,

Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight.

In all her words, unto all hearers fit,

You may at revels, you at council, sit.

If we love things long sought, age is a thing

Which we are fifty years in compassing;

If transitory things, which soon decay,

Age must be loveliest at the latest day.