"Sonnet 2" by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 2

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use
If thou couldst answer, 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse',
Proving his beauty by succession thine:
    This were to be new made when thou art old,
    And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.


Source of text text - William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets, edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones.  London: Arden Shakespeare, 1997, p. 115.

TJB: Risk-benefit. Arguing against youthful indulgence & for future investment, hypotaxis & long vowels make youth sound sweet & old age awful.