“Your face, my thane, is as a book where menMay read strange matters. To beguile the time,Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,But be the serpent under't.”

“To beguile the time, look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue.”

“Look like the innocent flower,But be the serpent under it.”

“I’ll look to like, if looking liking move; But no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent gives strength to make it fly.”

“Be the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it”

“Who will believe my verse in time to come,If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tombWhich hides your life and shows not half your parts.If I could write the beauty of your eyesAnd in fresh numbers number all your graces,The age to come would say 'This poet lies:Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'So should my papers yellow'd with their ageBe scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,And your true rights be term'd a poet's rageAnd stretched metre of an antique song: But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.”

“If you can look into the seeds of time And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favors nor your hate.”