Sonnet 67: Ah, Wherefore with Infection Should He Live
Sonnet 67: Ah, Wherefore with Infection Should He Live - meaning Summary
Beauty Preserving Corruption
The speaker complains that a single young man’s beauty keeps sin and falsehood alive by making vice and imitation attractive. He asks why this true rose should still exist when Nature is depleted and corrupted, suggesting that the youth’s perfection is a costly relic preserved by Nature to display former riches. The sonnet frames the youth as both moral danger and the last vestige of natural generosity in a corrupt age.
Read Complete AnalysesAh, wherefore with infection should he live, And with his presence grace impiety, That sin by him advantage should achieve, And lace it self with his society? Why should false painting imitate his cheek, And steal dead seeming of his living hue? Why should poor beauty indirectly seek Roses of shadow, since his rose is true? Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is, Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins, For she hath no exchequer now but his, And proud of many, lives upon his gains? O, him she stores, to show what wealth she had In days long since, before these last so bad.
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