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Sonnet 4


Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
  1
Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And, being frank, she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
  5
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For, having traffic with thyself alone,
  9
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive:
Then how, when Nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
  Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee;
  13
  Which, usèd, lives th' executor to be.







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