- They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
- That do not do the thing they most do show,
- Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
- Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
- They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,
- And husband nature’s riches from expense;
- They are the lords and owners of their faces,
- Others, but stewards of their excellence.
- The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
- Though to itself, it only live and die,
- But if that flower with base infection meet,
- The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
- For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
- Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.