XXXII.
Beauty by his own light shines forth and wins
Consent of all men to his supreme power;
Who will not think so, unagreeing, sins
’Gainst love that hails each beauty of an hour:
For love is only constant, when it sways
With the uncertain hues, that beauty gives,
Even admiration, swerving various ways,
Imagines change, and otherwhere straight lives:
The ficklest thing beneath the inconstant moon
Is the sigh swelling from a lover’s breast;
It pants, nor thinks that it must die full soon,
Even by its own luxuriance opprest.
Love like an o’erstrung bow, now snaps and breaks,
And now, o’erwrought, relaxes, yields, and shakes.